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The Guitar — Page 8

Remembering the WASPs — Page 15

History’s Gaps and Facts — Page 21

CONTENTS

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017 Opening Notes...........................................................

6

Boston Police Strike of 1919; Eunuchs

The Guitar.................................................................... 8 Don Hollway strums the instrument that shaped the 20th century

Remembering the WASPs ....................................... 15 Welles Brandriff looks at the evolution and contribution of the Women Airforce Service Pilots in the US Victory in World War II

History's Gaps and Facts........................................ 21 C. Wayne Dawson takes a look at the bloody history of Vlad Dracula with an eye on a possible explanation for his thirst for revenge

History Magazine is Now on Twitter! For the latest news and views, great promo offers and other perks, “Follow” us on Twitter! Find us here:

@History_Mag

High-Speed Art Deco ............................................. 23 Eric Bryan looks at the early days of German high-speed rail and the futuristic Schienenzeppelin

Cover Credit: A photo of a double guitar from the luthier Alexandre Voboam, Paris, 1690. (© Jorge Royan / www.royan.com.ar / CC BY-SA 3.0)

4

History Magazine December/January 2017

and we’ll see you there!

Power from the Air — Page 37

Izzy Einstein: Prohibition Agent No. 1 — Page 43

Pierre de Coubertin — Page 48

Dyed in the Wool .................................................... 31 Barry Gold looks at the discovery of dyes and how they made the world a more colorful place

Power from the Air: Windmills through the Centuries ......................... 37 David A. Norris looks at the history of one of the most important and enduring inventions brought about by humankind

Izzy Einstein: Prohibition Agent No. 1..................... 43 Melody Amsel-Arieli recounts the working life of the most successful agent employed by the US Prohibition Unit

Is Your Subscription About to Expire? Check the back of this magazine to see the expiry date. Call Toll-Free 1-888-326-2476 or visit www.history-magazine.com to renew or subscribe! Or see the order form on page 30 of this issue.

Pierre de Coubertin: Father of the Modern Olympics............................. 48 David Funk looks at the life of the man who's goal was to promote fitness and friendship through sport

Hindsight .................................................................. 53 A look at books and other media for your consideration

Questions or comments? Call 1-888-326-2476 or visit www.history-magazine.com

December/January 2017 History Magazine

5

TRIVIA

THE BOSTON POLICE STRIKE OF 1919

O

ne night in September of 1919, the Governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, went to bed thinking he was going to wake up incredibly unpopular. He had just fired most of the Boston Police force. But when he awoke, Coolidge was hailed as a hero throughout the country – this risky choice had been the right one. In 1919, the Boston Police Force became affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, a decision that was against the department rules. They sought union representation to improve their deplorable working conditions and increase their pay, or else they would strike. The police worked longer hours and were paid less than the average wageearner in the country. Recruits were paid two dollars a day in a time when the average salary was a little over 25 dollars a week, had little to no vacation time during their seven-day work week (up to, and in some cases over, 90 hours), were refused the opportunity to leave Boston without special permission, and were sometimes required to sleep at their posts instead of in their own beds. Their equipment was rotting, chewed on by rats, and outdated. The 19 police officers who headed the unionization movement, led by the senior patrolman John McInnes, were suspended by the police commissioner, Edwin Curtis,

Governor Calvin Coolidge inspects the militia during the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Public domain. Created in the US prior to 1923. Wikimedia Commons

after a judicial review for breach of department rules. The following day, about three-quarters of the Boston Police left their posts and began to strike, leaving the city undefended. To Curtis, they quit.

EUNUCHS

I

n the fifth century CE, the historian Priscus of Panium damningly wrote of Roman emperor Theodosius II (r. 408-450) that ‘everything he did was under the influence of eunuchs’. Despite them not featuring in the usual spotlights of ancient history, this is not the only time that such power was attributed to eunuchs. At several ancient courts, these castrated men became masters of the shadowy palace corridors, influencing matters small and large, and rising from humble origins to great heights. Who were they and how did they do it? Eunuchs were often slaves or criminals that were punished by castration, typically at a young enough age where it seriously disturbed their hormonal development. Imagine high-pitched voices and less body hair and muscles. Often foreigners, the eunuchs were clear outsiders from society, transplanted away from everything they knew and placed in environments such as the court, where they depended on the ruler for protection. Because eunuchs obviously could not threaten the royal succession, they could be trusted in the most private areas of the court, even those of the royal women. Already in Achaemenid Persia (559-331 BCE), eunuchs were go-betweens between the king and the royal women, gathering information and relaying messages and gossip back and forth. In the Roman Empire, they were gradually promoted to chamberlains, and around the fourth century CE, began ruling the roost in the royal bedchamber, which put them at a mere whispering distance from the emperor. Thus, these outsiders became important insiders deep within the palace walls.

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History Magazine December/January 2017

A group of eunuchs. Image from a mural from the tomb of the prince Zhanghuai, 706 AD. In the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923. Wikimedia Commons

Many eunuchs fulfilled the purpose for which they were intended and discreetly aided the ruler. However, the opportunities that existed to go above and beyond their job description were definitely exploited by some. As servants, guards and chamberlains, eunuchs often found doors open to them that were shut to others; their far-going access within the palace meant they were in a good position to gather information, which, just like it does today, aids

The strike was not viewed favorably to say the least. America was going through a Red Scare and was deeply afraid of the rising potential of a Bolshevik movement. They had good reason; other cities had declared general strikes, and even President Woodrow Wilson was dealing with an oncoming steel strike. Americans also seemed to understand the need for budgeting. The First World War had left a tremendous debt, and fat needed to be cut in every department, both at the federal and at the state levels. Coolidge himself, while Governor, rented a room rather than staying in an expensive mansion. Everyone was tightening their belts, why couldn’t the police? Even Samuel Gompers, president of the AFL, thought that the police should not have gone on strike.

When the police walked out, riots ensued. There were mass lootings, civil disobedience, rapes, and even cries from the rioters to “kill the cops” who had volunteered to protect the city in the crisis. The state militia was called in and order was restored after a few days of anarchy, but the damage had already been done, both in lives and property, but also in the reputation of the Boston Police Force. Coolidge saw the police as deserters, which is why, when Gompers requested they be rehired, Coolidge sent a telegram to Gompers which read: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” Curtis then hired a new police force, and Coolidge became a household name. Hm

the road to power. As intermediaries, they must have heard a lot of interesting things, too. Moreover, eunuchs positioned close to the ruler often decided who could enter his quarters or meet with him; a powerful tool to begin with, but it also meant that they could amass huge personal wealth by taking bribes. In the first century BCE, the eunuch Pothinus was even appointed regent for the underage pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. It is argued that he started a civil war by using his influence to turn Ptolemy’s sister Cleopatra VII against him, and even had Pompey murdered in order to curry favor with Julius Caesar. Another powerful eunuch was Chrysaphius, who is said to have ‘controlled everything’ and ‘wielded the royal power’ under Theodosius II (mentioned before). Around 440, Chrysaphius plotted to isolate the emperor from those closest to him, first removing the

important advisor Cyrus of Panopolis, who complained he was ousted from the emperor’s favor by ‘baneful drones’. He then played the empress Eudocia and the emperor’s powerful sister Pulcheria against each other, having Eudocia suggest to Theodosius that Pulcheria should be made a deaconess (as she had taken a vow of virginity). Realizing she had been plotted against, Pulcheria chose exile instead. Eudocia’s own permanent exile from 443 onward coincides perfectly with the start of Chrysaphius’ tenure as imperial bodyguard – a coincidence? After removing these obstacles, Chrysaphius was left alone to whisper self-serving poison into the emperor’s ears. All in all, eunuchs were untraditional candidates for power, but potentially powerful nonetheless; these men from humble origins could cast large shadows indeed.

— Ian Scott Wilson

Volume 18 Number 2

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017 PUBLISHER & EDITOR

Edward Zapletal [email protected] ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

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December/January 2017 History Magazine

7

MUSIC

The Guitar Player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer, is more famed for its off-center composition than the detail lavished on the early version of the guitar, then just coming into its own as a solo instrument. Public domain

THE GUITAR

WRITER/HISTORIAN/ASPIRING GUITARIST DON HOLLWAY STRUMS THE INSTRUMENT THAT SHAPED THE 20TH CENTURY

S

ay “rock star” and kids today picture a swaggering rapper shouting along with a beat box, or a barely legal, surgically enhanced minx twerking and warbling corporate synth-pop. Darn those crazy kids! The older generation remembers when “rock star” meant tight pants, long hair and — slung low across the hips like a six-string phallic symbol — the instrument that gave voice to an era: the guitar.

ROCK OF AGES The primeval rock star had to have been the Pleistocene caveman who noticed his hunting bow

8

hummed when plucked. Four thousand year old Babylonian clay tablets depict musicians playing stringed instruments with

History Magazine December/January 2017

resonating bodies and fretted necks. (So far, no depictions of screaming groupies.) Over the centuries, these instruments spread west across the Mediterranean, along the south evolving into the Arab al’ud and qitara and, in the north, the European lute and gittern. At the far western end, in 11th century Andalusia, the Renaissance lute and Moorish oud came together again in the Spanish vihuela, a flat-backed lute with a narrow waist, movable frets made of gut, and five or six courses (pairs of strings). Played with a bow, the vihuela was the progenitor of the viol; plucked with a quill or fingertips, it became the four-course Renaissance guitarra. By the 17th century, the ornate, inlaid, five-course Baroque guitar had become a favorite of the nobility. The Sun King, France’s Louis XIV, was a guitarist.

FRETBOARD VS KEYBOARD Already the tuning of the courses corresponded to the five highest strings of a modern guitar. In the late 1600s, Italian luthiers (makers of stringed instruments, including the violin and guitar) added the bass sixth. In the late 1700s, ivory or brass frets were fixed to the neck, which was still too short to carry more than 11 — less than a full octave. By the early 19th century, with the courses simplified to single strings, the modern guitar was born. Instruments appealing to the human ear mimic the range of the average human voice: about two octaves. An 88-key piano spans

seven octaves, with one middle-C note. A standard six-string, 22fret guitar offers not quite four octaves, but no less than five middle-Cs. Unlike on a keyboard, on a fretboard, the same note can be played on different strings, at different points on the neck. Highs and lows are not at opposite ends of the instrument, but mere inches apart; a guitarist can hold two octaves in one hand.

LEARNING TO SING The guitar soon found its way across the Atlantic into the log cabins of America, backing up the banjo, mandolin and fiddle. In 1838, Christian F. Martin, a son of German cabinet makers, set up shop in Nazareth, PA to make handcrafted guitars. In 1902, in Kalamazoo, MI, woodcarver Orville Gibson began turning out guitars with violin-style arch-tops and oval soundholes. In 1929, Martin introduced a 14-fret neck and big “dreadnought” body for increased volume and range

— now the industry standard. And in the late 1930s, Gibson’s L-4 and dreadnought Super 400 offered cutaway lower bodies, allowing access to the 17th or 18th fret. Eddie “Father of the Jazz Guitar” Lang (“April Kisses”) began playing his L-4 up high, and across the pond, Django “Minor Swing” Reinhardt did likewise, with just two fingers of his semi-paralyzed left hand, on his cutaway Selmer-Maccaferri. The guitar was ready to step out of the rhythm section and sing its own song.

SEARCHING FOR ITS VOICE All it lacked, compared to the rest of the orchestra, was volume. In the 1920s, Gibson began experimenting with magnetic pickups. When vibrating steel strings disturb their fields, electric coils turn those fields into signals that can be played back much more loudly. Amplified sound, though, makes a hollow-bodied guitar itself

resonate, which makes the strings vibrate, which the pickups reamplify, which makes the guitar body an endless feedback loop, building to nothing but a speakerblowing howl. Several inventors realized, almost simultaneously, that an electric guitar no longer needed a hollow body — in fact, it was an impediment. In the 1940s, country-jazz star Les Paul fixed pickups and six strings to a piece of solid pine, telling himself “I would make this instrument into the leader of the band.” Gibson called his idea a “broomstick with pickups”. So in 1950, it was country music fan Leo Fender, who couldn’t even play guitar, that turned his electricalrepair business into a factory for his Fender “Telecaster” — the first commercial solid-body electric guitar. Gibson belatedly recalled Les Paul. Together (though to this day, nobody agrees exactly who was responsible for what), they came up with their own idea of a solid

LEFT:

Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page with his double-necked Gibson SG. Photo: © 1983 Andrew Smith, Wikimedia Commons Django Reinhardt, November 1946. After the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were paralyzed in a fire, he used only the index and middle fingers to solo. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb, pulbic domain RIGHT:

December/January 2017 History Magazine

9

MUSIC Blues master B. B. King with his Gibson ES-355, “Lucille.” Hamburg, Germany, November 1971. Photo: Heinrich Klaffs, Wikimedia Commons

body. The “Les Paul” featured two pickups, one near the neck for rhythm and one near the bridge for lead work, with a deeply undercut body giving access to a full 23 frets: almost two octaves per string. It averaged, however, over nine pounds — a lot to have hanging off a shoulder for more than a few hours.

GIBSON VS FENDER And Leo Fender wasn’t resting on his laurels. His Telecaster-based Precision Bass, with a 34-inch neck, required an extended upper bout or horn for a balanced hang point. The same design gave a six-string the slim-line, swoopy ’50s look of a Sabre jet or finned Cadillac (not hurt by Fender’s use of pastel automotive colors). The light, sleek “Stratocaster” was as technically advanced as it looked. It even had a tremolo lever — more accurately, a vibrato, informally, the “whammy bar” — that could fractionally tighten or loosen the bridge itself.

10

Players could change pitch in mid-note, without even touching the strings. The Strat hit the market in 1954, just as rock-and-roll took off. Gibson hollow-body electrics powered jazz/swing guitarist Charlie Christian (“Solo Flight”), blues master B.B. King (who started out on a Telecaster and named all his Gibsons “Lucille”) and proto-rocker Chuck Berry (“Johnny B. Goode”) to stagefront. But even more than Elvis, it was geeky, bespectacled Texan Buddy Holly and his Strat that took rock-and-roll mainstream. “We like this kind of music,” Holly said of his band, the Crickets. “Jazz is strictly for stay-athomes!”

By the time everyone’s hair was down to their shoulders, the electric guitar had gone global.

History Magazine December/January 2017

“If it wasn’t for them,” Sir Paul McCartney admits, “there wouldn’t be any Beatles.” Holly perished in that day-themusic-died February ’59 plane crash. By then, Gibson had outfitted the Les Paul with double-coil pickups with reversed magnetic polarities, electrically out of phase to cancel interference (“humbuckers”), and adorned it with a deep multihued finish. These “sunburst” Les Pauls may have been the peak of six-string perfection, but were simply out of reach for aspiring rock-and-rollers. With sales flagging, in 1961, Gibson ditched the LP for the more utilitarian SG (Solid Guitar), modernistic Explorer and even more radical Flying V. The Les Paul fell to unloved, dirt-cheap, used-instrument status.

THE ROCK ERA Classical guitar never went away (remember Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas”?), but in the mind-altered 1960s, guitarists realized that electric signals could not only be amplified, but transformed. Distortion, delays, echoes, and a multitude of other effects dazzled drug-addled listeners. Folk-rock legend Bob Dylan literally shocked fans, setting aside his acoustic for a sunburst Strat at the July 1965 Newport Folk Festival, which “electrified one half of his audience, and electrocuted the other”. By the time everyone’s hair was down to their shoulders, the electric guitar had gone global, with makers in England, Germany, Italy, Japan and Brazil. Meanwhile, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones used a late-’50s Les Paul on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. Eric “is God” Clapton accompanied the Beatles on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with a ’57 Les Paul he'd given to friend George Harrison.

Left-handed Jimi Hendrix played his right-handed Fender Stratocaster upsidedown. Public domain

When Gibson revived the model in 1968, American guitarists practically separated into opposing camps. Left-handed virtuoso Jimi Hendrix played a right-handed Strat upside down (not to mention behind his back and with his teeth).

At the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival in San Francisco, he poured lighter fluid on it and set it afire onstage, raising guitar playing to performance art. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend of The Who used Les Pauls; Black Sabbath lefty Tommy

Iommi, an SG. In 1970, Clapton put down his SG, bought six Strats for $200 to $300 apiece, gave away three and used the best parts of the rest to make his famous “Blackie”. The generation’s most legendary guitar power riff, Deep Purple’s 1972 “Smoke on the Water”, was done on a Strat, though Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has since gone full circle and now plays a Russian lute in a Renaissance ensemble. Above the fray, the Beatles favored Rickenbacker, Gretsch and Epiphone (a Gibson subsidiary), though George used an SG on Revolver and John Lennon used it again on The White Album. Harrison would later use a custom Telecaster on Let It Be and in the Fab Four’s famous January 1969 rooftop concert. Throughout the ’70s, guitars and guitarists were the veritable gods of sex, drugs and rock and roll. The iconic axe in the iconic song must be Page’s custom Gibson SG double-neck in “Stairway to Heaven,” with twelve strings on top and six below. (On a recent Late Show appearance, Page admitted, “I could never play both necks at once.” David Letterman chided, “Then you’d have had a career!”)

EXTREMES

The metal extreme. Michael Angelo Batio playing his Double-Guitar in Mexico City, 2012. Photo: Jorgesys12, Wikimedia Commons

Since then, guitar makers and guitar players have vied to outdo and one-up each other. Aluminumnecked guitars. Seven-string guitars. Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen plays a five-neck, probably the practical limit; its lowest requires arms at full stretch just to reach it. The extreme has to be the “Rock Ock”, a 40-pound eight-neck with 51 strings and 154 frets, built by DGN Custom Guitars for the National Guitar Museum. Less an instrument than a self-contained chordophone band, the Ock consists of a mandolin, ukulele,

December/January 2017 History Magazine

11

MUSIC

Alive! was thought lost in a flaming Venezuela plane crash and only recently recovered, complete with burns. Who can put a price on that? Frampton insured "the Phoenix" for $2 million. Speculation begets copies, fakes and forgeries, a market luthiers now tap themselves. In addition to “signature” models, Fender and Gibson sell painstakingly accurate re-issues of vintage or even specific guitars, right down to the belt-buckle rash, finish cracks and worn frets.

6-string, fretless bass, standard bass, 12-string, baritone guitar, and 7-string. It accommodates eight players, just barely. Eddie van Halen went the other way. His homemade “Frankenstrat” had only one neck, but he played it like he had two left hands, using his right as an extra left to hammer notes up on the fretboard. Now every aspiring guitar hero needs tapping on his résumé. Michael Angelo Batio plays both necks of his V-form Dean Double Guitar simultaneously, and even a Quad Guitar with seven-string upper necks and six-string bottoms. Alas, he still only has two hands.

THE FUTURE

SPEED DEMONS The title of “world’s fastest guitar player” is even more contentious. Years ago, the Guinness Book of World Records, using Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s frenetic “Flight of the Bumblebee” as the standard, closed its YouTube channel on the subject. Guitarists claim to play “Bumblebee” at speeds of up to 4,000 beats per minute, about 66 strokes per second (even a hummingbird’s wings beat at a maximum 80b/sec), at which rate the one-minute and twenty-second song is reduced to a few seconds of meaningless static. “The quality of performance (i.e., clarity of individual notes, etc.) is dramatically reduced at these speeds,” understates Guinness. “Unless the performance is flawless, it is not a record.”

THE BUBBLE Today, manufacturers like Ibanez, Paul Reed Smith, Dean, and Kramer have given players and buyers more quality choices than ever. Demand makes Guitar Center the world’s largest chain of music instrument retailers; there is no comparable Piano Center or

12

Eric Clapton with his Fender Stratocaster, Blackie, in Rotterdam. June 23, 1978. Photo: Chris Hakkens, Wikimedia Commons

Violin Center. In many ways, though, Martin, Gibson and Fender nailed it the first time. C. F. Martin & Co., family-owned for 180 years, still makes the most revered acoustics; the Les Paul and Strat remain the most popular solid-bodies. Before the last economic downturn, vintage guitars even entered into a speculative bubble. Those unloved, late-’50s Les Pauls hit six figures. With provenance, the numbers jumped even higher: John and George’s SG sold for $570,000; Clapton’s Blackie for $959,540. The Strat Hendrix burnt at Monterey went, scorchmarks and all, for $380,000; the one he played at Woodstock got a reputed $2 million. The bubble inevitably popped, but fortunately — or ominously — is re-inflating. In December 2013, Dylan’s Newport Strat reaped $965,000. The custom black Les Paul on the cover of Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes

History Magazine December/January 2017

Today, there are guitars that tune themselves, guitars with MIDI and USB computer interfaces and mouse pads, and guitars that can be programmed to sound like other guitars, or even other instruments. The most recent, and hugely popular, revolution in guitar playing doesn’t even require a guitar. Thanks to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, a generation raised on “musicians” playing nothing more than turntables has rediscovered the six-string. Sure, they learned finger work with a game controller and TV screen, but with computerized instruction programs like Rocksmith, they’re going beyond games. They’re picking up guitars and starting to play. Darn those crazy kids! Hm

FURTHER READING The Gibson Les Paul Handbook by Paul Balmer and Les Paul. The Fender Stratocaster Handbook by Paul Balmer. The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer.

Frequent contributor DON HOLLWAY taps computer keys with fingertips callused from guitar playing.

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REMEMBERING THE WASPS

WELLES BRANDRIFF LOOKS AT THE EVOLUTION AND CONTRIBUTION OF THE WOMEN AIRFORCE SERVICE PILOTS IN THE US VICTORY IN WORLD WAR II

A

group of women got together in 1929 and formed an organization promoting aviation and encouraging the participation of women pilots. They called themselves the Ninety-Nines; the name was based on the number of charter members. Amelia Earhart was the first president of the organization.

The primary goals of this organization were to “create new flying opportunities for women and remove the restrictions imposed on women fliers” (such as battling the Civil Aeronautics Administration over its negative attitude about pregnant women piloting aircraft). In 1938, the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) was launched on college campuses across the nation. The idea was that the colleges would provide ground school instruction and local flying field operators would provide flight training. Initially, three percent of the slots went to women but, by mid-1941, as the country moved closer to becoming embroiled in the war in Europe, the program was limited to men only. The Women Flyers of America was a national flying club founded in 1940 that targeted girls or women who were interested in or already involved in some aspect of aviation. The organization negotiated lower rates for flying lessons, thus opening up the opportunity for women of average means (as compared to the more affluent women who belonged to the Ninety-Nines). Enter Nancy Harkness Love and Jacqueline Cochran. Nancy Love was an experienced pilot who was a member of a socially prominent family and came from a background of wealth. During the early 1940s, as a member of the Massachusetts Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, she was one of the pilots who ferried American aircraft to the Canadian border, pushed them across the international boundary, then hopped back in the planes and flew them to their Canadian destination, where they would await shipment to overseas locations.

December/January 2017 History Magazine

AV I A T I O N

A portrait of American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. Circa 1928. Library of Congress

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AV I A T I O N

The flights brought her into contact with the Air Ferrying Division of the Air Transport Command. A year or so later, her husband, reserve Major Robert Love, was called to active duty and assigned as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Transport Command. Starting sometime in the 1930s, Nancy had begun mulling over the idea of using highly qualified women pilots in a military capacity. She broached the idea with her husband and he suggested she sound out the possibility with someone in Plans. Nancy wrote to Colonel Olds in charge of the Plans division of Air Corps Headquarters. Olds asked Nancy to draw up a list of women pilots who had commercial ratings. There were forty-nine names on the list, each of whom had over a thousand hours of flying time, and could be used to ferry planes from factories to bases. Olds submitted a plan to Hap Arnold recommending that women pilots be integrated into the Ferrying Division, but Arnold turned it down because he wasn’t ready to move forward on the issue of women pilots yet.

In 1943, Jacqueline Cochran was appointed to Director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program. Public domain

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Mrs. Nancy Harkness Love, 28, director of the US Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron, adjusts her helmet in the cockpit of an Army plane before taking off from an eastern United States base. The women under her command ferried planes from factories to coastal airports, from which they flew to overseas battle fronts. Picture dated 1942-1945. Public domain. National Archives and Records Administration

Jackie Cochran was a famous flier who, among other feats, won the prestigious 1938 Bendix Trophy Race and was awarded the Harmon Trophy that year and the next. She was married to Floyd Odlum, a millionaire businessman who had contributed liberally to Roosevelt’s political campaigns, so both Cochran and her husband were friends of the Roosevelts and had ready access to the White House. In the summer of 1941, Cochran flew to Britain and met with the woman who was Chief of Women pilots for the British Air Transport Auxiliary. This woman suggested Cochran organize an American contingent to support the British war effort (which she eventually did). When Jackie returned from England, she met with the President and his wife. Mrs. Roosevelt was excited about the idea of using women pilots in the US, so the President instructed Jackie to research the topic. He wrote a letter to Bob Lovett, Assistant

History Magazine December/January 2017

Secretary of War for Air, instructing him to support Jackie in this effort. Lovett had her work with General Arnold and Colonel (soon to be “General”) Olds in identifying a select group of women pilots to ease the pilot shortage the Ferrying Command was anticipating. Working with Civil Aeronautics Administration records, Cochran identified one hundred and fifty commercially rated women pilots and fired off a questionnaire to each of them. Close to ninety percent responded with enthusiasm. A proposal went forward to Air Force Headquarters. Cochran wanted the proposed organization to include an ongoing training program rather than end up a one-time shot. Both Marshall and Arnold were against the idea then because there were still more male pilots than planes. Furthermore, the whole idea of a separate women’s organization was too controversial and experimental to be able to get the kind of support needed at that point in time.

Jackie went off in a huff and proceeded to handpick an American contingent of twenty-four women in late 1941 to help out in Britain. The group performed in an outstanding manner and the news was duly noted by the powers that be back in the States. In September of 1942, Cochran returned to the US to make another pitch to Arnold. The idea of creating a women’s air service pilot program didn’t arise in a vacuum. The WAAC and WAVES advocacy groups developed simultaneously. Not surprisingly, the advocates for one group used progress in the other groups to advance their own interests. The wheels had begun turning in the spring of 1941, when a bill was introduced into the House proposing the establishment of a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. The bill was passed the following May and shortly before its passing, the Navy jumped on the bandwagon and began pushing for their own women’s organization to be fully integrated into the naval reserve. Although there was opposition to the idea, the President lent his support to the concept after getting some gentle (?) nudging from the First Lady. On 30 July 1942, the WAVES officially came into existence when Congress acquiesced and passed enabling legislation. At about the same time, General Arnold began promoting the idea of a paramilitary organization of women pilots who would be hired as civilians. By approaching it in this fashion, Arnold managed to do an end run around the limitations of the women’s reserve legislation. Since women were no longer eligible to participate in the CPTP, this new program would offer an alternative way for women to pursue their flying careers. It would also give Arnold the opportunity to take advantage of the

leadership skills offered by Jackie Cochran and Nancy Love. In a re-organization during the spring of 1942, the ferrying command became a division within the Air Transport Command. This brought Nancy Love into a position where she had access to Colonel Tunner, the new head of the Ferrying Division. By then, Tunner’s ferrying operation was hampered by a severe shortage of qualified male pilots so he turned a sympathetic ear to Nancy’s proposal for an elite corps of women fliers. Tunner submitted a revised version of Nancy’s plan to his new boss, General George, the head of ATC. When General Olds was reassigned, however, he neglected to inform General George that Hap Arnold did not want anything done about the women pilot’s proposal until Jackie Cochran returned from England. George, not being aware of this, proceeded to implement the plan for a Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (WAFS), naming Nancy Love to be its Director. When Arnold discovered what had transpired, he was annoyed because under pressure from the White House, he had promised Jackie that she would be in charge of any women’s group established under the umbrella of the Army Air Forces. When Jackie returned from England to discover what had happened, she was, to put it mildly, incensed. A bigger problem for Arnold was the fact that the Ferrying Division was six weeks behind in the delivery of warplanes. As the planes were coming off the production lines at the rate of three thousand per month, it was clear that Nancy Love’s small detachment of elite pilots, though helpful, was not by any means going to be sufficient to solve the delivery problem. The consequence of all this was

that two separate women’s groups were created. First, there was the Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron which was part of ATC with Nancy Love at its head. Following this, Arnold immediately authorized the creation of a second organization (under the direction of Cochran) called the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), an official training program to provide the AAF an ongoing and growing pool of qualified women fliers. The two organizations were consolidated in July of 1943 and the combined program would be known as the Women’s Air Service Pilots or WASPs, which meant that Nancy Love reported to Jackie Cochran who was named Director of Women Pilots. Love continued to be in charge of the women in the ferrying division, but Cochran was in overall charge. Although she raised the hackles of most of the generals she dealt with, Jackie generally got what she wanted because she was recognized as a tough administrator, but also as one who knew what she was doing. Partly because their personalities, as well as their upbringing, were so different, Jackie Cochran and Nancy Love were caught up in a power struggle which saw each of them seek to garner partisan support from their admirers. However, despite the fact there was no love lost between them, they managed to work together for the two and a half year existence of the WASP program. The WASP training program started out at Houston’s Municipal Airport, but since the facilities were inadequate there, they eventually relocated to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. The flying program started out at sixteen weeks, but within a year, had been lengthened to twenty-seven weeks. It first called for one hundred and fifteen

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AV I A T I O N President Barack Obama signs bill S.614 in the Oval Office July 1, 2009 at the White House awarding (also posthumously) the Congressional Gold Medal to Women Airforce Service Pilots. Of the women who received their wings as Women Airforce Service Pilots, approximately 300 are living today. The women in this photo are Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Women’s Airforce Service Pilots Elaine Danforth Harmon, Lorraine Z. Rodgers and Bernice Falk Haydu, and active duty USAF pilots Colonel Dawn Dunlop, Colonel Bobbi Doorenbos, Lieutenant Colonel Wendy Wasik, Major Kara Sandifur and Major Nicole Malachowski (former Thunderbird pilot). Public domain

hours of flying instruction, but over time, that was raised in increments to two hundred and ten hours. Ground school instruction started at one hundred and eighty hours and ended up at over four hundred hours. The WASPs flew sixty million miles in training and operations; delivered almost thirteen thousand planes to embarkation points; flew maintenance checks; towed targets for anti-aircraft target practice as well as air to air gunnery practice. And the women flew every plane in the Army Air Force inventory up to and including the B-29. Interestingly, the overall accident rate was slightly lower for the women than the men. When Paul Tibbets was preparing for the atomic bomb mission over Japan, he encountered resistance from the pilots because of the tendency of the B-29 engines

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to catch fire on take-off. His solution: train two WASP pilots to fly the bomber. The women pilots then flew to the bases where the men were stationed, took them up in the bomber and, in effect, said: look, if we can fly this plane, then you certainly should be able to do so. When word got out about how the women pilots were out to shame the men into flying the B-29, negative publicity quickly put an end to that exercise. All told, of the nearly eleven hundred women who completed the program, thirty-eight were killed: several in training accidents, the rest during regular operational missions. Cornelia Fort, one of the original WAFS, was killed when a male pilot clipped her wing while showing off. He parachuted and survived, trapped in her cockpit, she didn’t. The irony was that Fort had been

History Magazine December/January 2017

instructing a student pilot in the skies over Pearl Harbor the morning of 7 December 1941. Finding herself in the middle of a swarm of Japanese planes, she managed to elude them and get herself and her student pilot down safely. Some of the WASPs were the victims of poorly maintained aircraft and a few, sad to say, were victims of sabotage. Two of them were killed when someone put sugar in the gas tank and the engine quit on take-off. As a consequence, they burned to death. Information about these incidents was swept under the rug at the time for fear of negative publicity about the use of women in flight operations. As the European war began winding down, and the male pilots began returning from combat, they started complaining to their congressmen about the fact

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that the women were filling flying slots that rightfully belonged to the men. At the same time, the Army Air Force cadets and their civilian instructors were released from flying training and made available to the army ground forces in anticipation of the need to make a large-scale ground assault against the Japanese mainland. This led to a lobbying effort by the instructors that was supported by the media. One of the most strident voices in the media was that of Drew Pearson who aimed much of his vitriol at Jackie Cochran, claiming that she had seduced General Arnold in order to get her way. It is important to remember that Pearson was a gossip columnist, one of the worst of the breed. The male civilian pilot’s lobby approached Representative Robert Ramspeck who was Chairman of the House Committee on Civil Service and convinced him to investigate the WASP program. The conclusions of the Ramspeck Report, which were both inaccurate and biased, in combination with the media opposition, helped to defeat a bill brought before Congress to militarize the WASPS. The end result was that the WASP program was officially deactivated on 20 December 1944. Thus ended a program which made significant contributions to the war effort. While the program was still active, there were no benefits for the WASP pilots. If a pilot was killed, the family had to bear the cost of shipping the body home. Furthermore, since they weren’t regular military, their families were not allowed to have an American flag placed on the casket. In 1977, Colonel Bruce Arnold, the son of General Hap Arnold, worked closely with Senator Barry Goldwater, a reserve Air Force Major General, to get a bill through Congress giving the WASPs veteran’s benefits. And in 2009, President Obama presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the surviving WASP pilots and posthumously to those who had died. Hm

History Magazine Back Issues Back issues are available in PDF format only. To order by phone, contact the Circulation Department toll-free at 1-888-326-2476 extension 111 or visit www. history-magazine.com.

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See the ad on the back cover this issue for Welles Brandriff ’s 2012 historical fiction novel, Born to Soar, a tribute to the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

WELLES BRANDRIFF lives in Hamden, CT. He

has had a checkered career, having served as an Air Force officer, university financial administrator, adjunct faculty member, high school teacher, and in retirement, has written both historical fiction and non-fiction magazine articles.

December/January 2017 History Magazine

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Bone-chilling Tales of Murder and Mayhem! History Magazine’s Outlaws & Villains is a collection of previously published articles chronicling some of America’s most notorious characters. Read about outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Jesse James or gangsters such as Al Capone and Bonnie & Clyde. Come face-toface with cold-blooded killers like Lizzie Borden and Herman Mudgett, or experience the desolate and dangerous Alcatraz Prison.

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HISTORY’S GAPS AND FACTS

C. WAYNE DAWSON TAKES A LOOK AT A BIT OF THE BLOODY HISTORY OF VLAD DRACULA WITH AN EYE ON A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR HIS THIRST FOR REVENGE

W

hat we know about the past are the facts, what we don’t know are the unexplained gaps. As a historian and a historical fiction author, I’ve often found the best story lurks inside these missing pages – the gaps – of history. I am writing my historical trilogy, The Treasure of the Raven King by filling in these voids. My novels concern Vlad Dracula, a real person whose life in the fifteenth century was far bloodier than Bram Stoker’s vampire myths. For example, the facts are that Vlad Dracula prepared to turn back a Turkish invasion of Transylvania in 1462 by impaling 20-30,000 of his local enemies. Impaling is a grisly means of execution that inflicts hours, or even days, of suffering on the victim.

When Mehmet II, the sultan of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, entered the country shortly thereafter, and discovered the thousands of victims dangling from stakes, he said he “could not conquer the country of such a man who could do such terrible and unnatural things, and put his power and his subjects to such use.” Imagine how a military leader like Mehmet, despite a career of spilling blood on the

battlefield, had so little stomach for Vlad’s savagery that he called off his offensive. Putting ourselves in the sultan’s shoes, we, too, might find such brutality unexplainable, even mysterious. What could have twisted Dracula’s mind so badly that he did such monstrous things? Psychologists tell us that this kind of cruelty results from the perpetrator suffering abuse.

EXTENDING HISTORY

LEFT: The Portrait of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror by Italian painter Gentile Bellini, 1480. Public domain RIGHT: Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia (1456-1462), died 1477. Public domain

So, I drew from historical hints that suggest Dracula, when imprisoned as a young man by the Turks, endured treatment that instilled a thirst for revenge.

Since the factual record on this is sketchy, I imagined a story to bridge this gap. More intriguing, however, is what happened to Dracula a few months later, when he had to flee the Turks. Since they were Muslim and he was Christian, he assumed he could find refuge in the nearby Roman Catholic country of Hungary, ruled by the Raven King, Matthias Corvinus. Instead of welcoming Dracula, however, Corvinus threw him into the Tower of Solomon, a notorious prison a few hundred yards from the royal palace. Dracula was incarcerated there for years. Historians Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu state in In Search of Dracula that many secret tunnels were dug in this vicinity, some of which probably led from

December/January 2017 History Magazine

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EXTENDING HISTORY

the royal palace to the tower and were used by Corvinus’ cousin, Ilona Szilagyi, to visit the prisoner romantically.

Despite Dracula’s gruesome reputation and his practice of amusing himself by tormenting small animals in his cell, Corvinus consented to Dracula marrying Ilona and eventually returning him to his throne.

Why Ilona would be drawn to a man like Dracula and why the Raven King would make such an about-face history cannot say. These mysteries offered me the gaps I was looking for. After asking several psychologists what kind of woman would

be attracted to a mass murderer, I studied up on Border-line Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality. This enabled me to recreate Ilona’s character background, “answering” what history could not. Next, I studied the history of the people at the sultan’s royal court during the period Dracula was a hostage. Based on seemingly disconnected facts, I imagined Dracula was able to gather information that later helped him to reveal a secret to Corvinus that won Dracula’s freedom. Hm

C. WAYNE DAWSON writes for The Williamson County Sun. He

is a former Adjunct Professor of History at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.

FURTHER READING By filling in the gaps between the known and the unknown, I created my trilogy, Treasure of the Raven King. Look for the first book in the series, The Darkness that Could Be Felt at www.amzon.com/TheDarkness-That-Could-Felt/dp/ 1633631559. Here is how the storyline goes: Women are disappearing off the streets of Vienna in 1684 and Captain Mathis Zieglar vows to find out why. Defying orders to break off his investigation, he discovers they are being trafficked into the Muslim slave market. His only hope of ransoming them from a life of abuse is to find the treasure of the Raven King. The treasure is a code lodged inside an ancient text that threatens to rock the foundation of the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires. – CWD

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History Magazine December/January 2017

“HIGH-SPEED” ART DECO

ERIC BRYAN LOOKS AT THE EARLY DAYS OF GERMAN HIGH-SPEED RAIL AND THE FUTURISTIC SCHIENENZEPPELIN

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he world speed record for a rail vehicle was broken by a German railcar in 1931. Designed in 1929 by Franz Kruckenberg, the Schienenzeppelin (“Rails-zeppelin”) was a retro-futuristic propeller-powered railcar. It was so-called because its elongated aerodynamic silvery sleekness and manner and materials of construction echoed those of a zeppelin.

THE GENESIS German aircraft engineer and inventor Franz Friedrich Kruckenberg (1882 – 1965) was born in Uetersen into an old family of Hamburg merchants. From 1904 to 1907, he studied mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule (“Technical University of Berlin”) in Berlin-Charlottenburg, earning a diploma in naval engineering. He went on to design combat aircraft and zeppelins. Kruckenberg founded an engineering firm in Heidelberg after WWI. Working with Curt Stedefeld and Willy Black, Kruckenberg designed a propeller-powered suspended monorail train with a projected top speed of about 224 mph.

Franz Kruckenberg when a young man, in 1909. Public Domain

RAILROADS

The Schienenzeppelin on the move in its early format, with four wheels and a four-blade propeller, at Steilrampe Erkrath-Hochdahl, on the DüsseldorfElberfelder line. Photo by Franz Jansen. Creative Commons

Unable to find investors willing to back this expensive venture, Kruckenberg’s group focused on designing a high speed rail vehicle. Kruckenberg later partnered with Hermann Föttinger of the Gdansk Institute for Fluid Dynamics. Föttinger was Germany’s first Professor of Fluid Mechanics and Turbo-Machinery at the Technische Hochschule. They cofounded the FlugbahnGesellschaft mbH (“Trajectory Company, Ltd.”) with the aim to build the Shienenzeppelin in Hanover. Kruckenberg had begun drawing up the plans in 1929.

THE DESIGN The Schienenzeppelin was built at the DRG (Deutsche ReichsbahnGesellschaft, or “German Imperial Railway Company”) HanoverLeinhausen repair shop by Kruckenberg’s group, with eight engineers and 30 other workers on the task. For a high-speed railcar, lightness was key. Basing the plan of the Schienenzeppelin on aircraft and zeppelin design, principals and materials, Kruckenberg’s railcar was made of aluminum, wood, steel and fabric. Following on from rigid airship and aircraft fuselage construction, the Schienenzepplin had a ribbed, skeletal (space frame) inner structure, which was wrapped in an outer skin. Power was provided by a pair of 230 hp water-cooled BMW IV six-cylinder aircraft engines, which turned (via compressed air) a rear-mounted four-blade propeller made of ash wood. The driveshaft and prop were angled forward at seven degrees to

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RAILROADS

provide downward pressure of the railcar’s wheels against the track. The Schienenzeppelin was nearly 85 feet long, and weighed about 20 tons – a pittance compared to a hulking steam or diesel locomotive. The vehicle rode on four wheels, could accommodate 40 passengers in smoking and nonsmoking sections, had a centrally-placed buffet, a luggage room, and a bathroom. Due to the speeds at which the Schienenzeppelin was intended to operate, most of the windows were non-opening; air circulation was provided by a ventilation system. Kruckenberg’s dual preoccupations of lightness and speed were reflected in the railcar’s spartan, Bauhaus-design interior, which featured canvascovered seats. Kruckenberg even dismissed sound-baffling as superfluous. Kruckenberg soon upgraded the Schienenzeppelin’s power-plant to a 46-liter water-cooled BMW VI V-12 aircraft engine. Designed with an eye toward lightness, this 600 hp engine was constructed of aluminum and magnesium. Kruckenberg also switched the propeller for a two-blade version, believing it to be more efficient at high speed than the four-blade prop. The railcar had an auxiliary DC electric motor for shuntbraking, reversing and for initiating motion.

KRUCKENBERG AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN HIGH-SPEED RAIL by Eric Bryan With the sale of the Schienenzeppelin in 1934, Kruckenberg focused on designing a multiple-unit railcar, the DRG Class SVT 137 155. Similar in appearance to a modern commuter train, the SVT 137 comprised of three carriages, the leading one with diesel-hydraulic power. On 23 June 1939, during a speed test on the Berlin-Hamburg railway, this train reached 134 mph, a world record for a diesel-fueled rail vehicle.

The Kruckenberg-designed VT10 501, the Senator day train. Photographer unknown Public Domain, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Prusy via www.schlafwagen.net

After World War II, Kruckenberg continued with a high-speed train design based on the SVT 137 155, the DB Class VT 10.5. This culminated in 1954 with the construction of two diesel-hydraulic eight-unit trains, the Senator day train, and the Komet night/sleeper train. These lightweight trains entered service in 1954; the Senator worked the Frankfurt-Hamburg line, and the Komet was on the Hamburg-Zürich line. The trains initially had a top speed of 75 mph. After upgrades, they could go to 99 mph. The next evolution in German high-speed rail transport came in 1957, with the VT 11.5. Based on the two previous trains, these dieselhydraulic multi-units were used on the massive Trans Europ Express network, which included ferry service between Denmark and Sweden. These trains were often made up of three passenger coaches, a dining/bar car, a dining/kitchen car, and a locomotive unit at each end.

TESTING AND RECORDS Kruckenberg was hindered from testing the Schienenzeppelin because no German firm would insure a propeller-driven railcar. He finally obtained coverage from Lloyd’s of London. The Schienenzeppelin made its first prop-powered test drive on 15 September 1930, and its maiden short trip on 23 September. While on a test run to Burgwedel, the railcar reached 113 mph. The

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Schienenzeppelin premiered to the public on 25 September 1930, carrying officials from the GVT (Society for Traffic Engineering) and the DRG on the AltenbekenKreiensen railway. On 10 May 1931, the Schienenzeppelin went to 125 mph on the stretch between Plockhorst and Lehrte on the Berlin-Lehrte railway. For an official speed record attempt, the Berlin-Hamburg line

History Magazine December/January 2017

was chosen due to its lack of both gradients and sharp curves. With Kruckenberg aboard on 21 June 1931, the Schienenzeppelin reached 143 mph, a world speed record for a rail vehicle. The railcar reached its top speed between Ludwigslust and Wittenberge, a stretch where it could go to full power. The Schienenzeppelin covered the 160-mile journey from Hamburg-Bergedorf to

Berlin-Spandau in 98 minutes. (The Schienenzeppelin reputedly attained 143 mph on the same tracks unofficially on 31 May 1931.) The Schienenzeppelin made trips throughout Germany to demonstrate and exhibit it to the populace, its futuristic appearance and record-breaking speed drawing crowds wherever it appeared. The railcar’s speed record stood for over 20 years, until it was broken in 1954 by a French SNCF-7121 electric locomotive. However, the Schienenzeppelin still holds the world speed record for a gasoline-fueled rail vehicle. Kruckenberg and company had created the world’s first bullet train.

CHALLENGES AND MODIFICATIONS Kruckenberg was confronted with the disadvantages of a propeller-pushed railcar: The unguarded prop posed a hazard to people on railway platforms, the

The Schienenzeppelin drawing a crowd at Bochum Central Station in June 1931. Photo © Udo Elster, retrieved from www.historisches-ehrenfeld.de/bildergalerie-bahnhof.htm

Schienenzeppelin required assistant propulsion for climbing steep grades, and the vehicle couldn’t pull cars due to the positioning of the prop. Regarding the latter problem (which limited the railcar’s passenger capacity), Kruckenberg simply proposed that enough Schienenzeppelins should run on frequent schedules, which would also create convenient, flexible timetables for passengers. However, to overcome the propeller-associated difficulties, Kruckenberg modified the

THE DEUTSCHE REICHSBAHN —

Schienenzeppelin in 1932, altering the front end and replacing the front axle with a two-axle bogie. He supplanted the prop with an aerodynamic fairing, and gave traction to the railcar through Föttinger’s fluid drives, transmitting hydraulic power to both axles of the bogie for forward and reverse. In this format, the Schienenzeppelin was clocked at 110 mph in early 1933. Another challenge facing Kruckenberg was the then century-old railway network of the Reichsbahn, which had been

by Eric Bryan

After the end of WWI, the various railways of the “German State Railway”). After the 1938 German annexation of Austria, the Deutsche Reichsbahn separate states of the German Empire were joined to create a German national railway. Called also assumed jurisdiction of the Federal the Deutsche Reichsbahn (“German State Railway of Austria. The current German railway is the Railway”), it was also known as the Deutsche Bahn (DB, “German RailGerman Imperial Railway, and the way”). Established in 1994, Deutsche German Reich Railway. This gave the Weimar Republic country-wide control Bahn is a joint-stock company based in of the German rail system. The comBerlin. It replaced East Germany’s pany, Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen Deutsche Reichsbahn and West Germany’s Deutsche Bundesbahn. (“German State Railways”), was established in 1920. Deutsche Bahn‘s sole shareholder is the In 1924, the Deutsche ReichseisenFederal Republic of Germany. Deutsche The Deutsche Reichsbahn bahnen was rearranged under the Bahn is one of the biggest transport conGesellschaft logo, degovernance of Deutsche Reichsbahn- signed by Otto Firle (1889– cerns in the world, second only to Gesellschaft (DRG, “German State Deutsche Post / DHL. The company’s ICE 1966). Public Domain, image uploaded to Railway Company”), an organization 3 (Intercity-Express 3) trains have a top which was private in name only, as it Wikipedia by Christian Bier speed of about 200 mph, and have was entirely owned by the German State. Another been in service since 2000. Serving approximately two reshuffling in 1937 kept the rail system under state con- billion passengers annually, Deutsche Bahn operates trol, but renamed it to Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB, the largest railroad and infrastructure in Europe.

December/January 2017 History Magazine

25

RAILROADS

EARLY GERMAN RAIL AND THE ADLER —

The first official German steam railroad, the Bavarian stagecoaches of the time. The first class cars featured Ludwig Railway, opened on 7 December 1835 between brass fittings, gilded door handles, glass windows, and Fürth and Nuremberg. The Adler (“Eagle”), the first com- the interiors were lined with blue foulard. The locomotive mercially viable locomotive to operate in Germany, ran was painted in green, with red trim and wheels. on this line. It was built in Newcastle, England by George Germany’s first long-haul railroad, finished on 7 April and Robert Stephenson. A noncommercial locomotive 1839, was the Leipzig-Dresden railway. Built by the Leipzig-Dresdner Eisenbahndesigned by the Royal Prussian Compagnie (“Leipzig-Dresden Steelworks in Berlin, made a Railway Company”), this railtrial run on a set of tracks circa way was the first in Germany 1816. Known as a Krigar locomotive, this machine pulled a to use only steam traction. wagon loaded with about five Though the Bavarian Ludwig tons of cargo during its testing. Railway utilized steam power, The Adler was of the some of the trains were horsePatentee type of locomotive. drawn. The first locomotive to operate on the Leipzig-Dresden With a 2-2-2 (six wheel) was another British-made maarrangement, the vehicle was chine, similar to the Adler. constructed on a wooden The Adler replica at the DB Museum in KoblenzThe Adler was scrapped in frame wrapped in sheet Lützel, a local branch of the Transport Museum in Nuremberg, April 2010. Photo by Urmelbeauftragter, 1858, but a replica of the locometal. Two steam cylinders Creative Commons motive was completed in 1935 gave power to the wheels on the center axle. The tender was attached to the loco- to mark the centenary of German Rail. The replica was motive via a fixed connection. The locomotive itself, rebuilt in 1984, and refurbished in 1999. It spent much of which could go up to 40 mph, had no brakes; brakes its time in the Nuremberg Transport Museum, where it were fitted to the tender, and were controlled by the fire- suffered fire damage in 2005. The locomotive was again man. Weighing in at nearly 15 tons in working order rebuilt in 2007, and is currently operational. A second, but (when loaded with coal and water), the Adler’s passen- non-operational replica constructed in the 1950s is in the ger cars utilized horse-drawn carriage bodies. These Nuremberg Transport Museum. The museum also houses were painted in yellow, a standard color for German one of the Adler’s original second class passenger cars.

designed for speeds of 62–75 mph. The aging tracks were a major concern when contemplating high-speed rail travel. Kruckenberg suggested to the DRG that a dedicated high-speed rail network could be constructed, in parallel with existing lines, which would connect Paris with Moscow. But in addition to this obstacle to Kruckenberg’s project, the DRG had decided to develop its own high-speed railcar. These circumstances prevented the Shienenzeppelin from going into production. Continuing its operational life as an experimental rail vehicle, the Schienenzeppelin had another rebuild in early 1934, being fitted with a Maybach GO 5 diesel engine, positioned in the front. This

26

by Eric Bryan

The Kruckenberg-designed SVT 137 155. Image by Anonymous, Public Domain, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Prusy via www.scalaenne.wordpress.com

step was part of the planning and testing stages of Kruckenberg’s next railcar design, the dieselhydraulic SVT 137 155. The DRG purchased the Schienenzeppelin in late 1934 for 10,000 Reichsmarks. The company had planned to use the railcar for further testing, and intended to place it in a museum, but instead, it sat neglected at a DRG repair facility in Berlin-Tempelhof. The DRG finally scrapped the one-off

History Magazine December/January 2017

wonder in 1939, in order to use its materials in the war effort. Kruckenberg’s pioneering Schienenzeppelin concepts formed the basis for future high-speed rail travel. The Schienenzeppelin became popular amongst model railroaders, with the German model train maker Märklin producing the railcar in several different scales over the decades. In 1953, Kruckenberg received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He died on 19 June 1965, in Heidelberg. Hm ERIC BRYAN is a freelance writer originally from Burlingame Hills, California. His work has appeared in many periodicals in North America, Europe, and Australia.

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Archeologists date the Blombos cave people to about a hundred thousand years ago. If we accept thirty years as defining a generation, our ancient human relatives occupied that cave more than 3,300 generations ago. If you have any artistic talent, that’s where it started. More recently, only fifteen thousand years ago, a group of humans whose forebears migrated out of Africa, moved into a cave near Altamira, Spain. Maybe it was cold outside or perhaps raining. There wasn’t much to do in the cave, no cable TV, Internet or cell phones, so we can imagine a young man was so bored that he took some powdered red rock, mixed it with water and took a mouthful. He put his hand on the cave ceiling and sprayed that red mouthful at his hand. That young cave man removed his hand and admired the perfect outline of it that remained on the ceiling. Maybe he turned to his companions, pointed at his creation and said, “Hey, look at my hand,” as his hand fit perfectly in the design. All his cave buddies lined up saying, “Let me try it too.” There are many hands outlined on the walls. It was nothing less than the birth of representational art,

DYED IN THE WOOL

BARRY GOLD LOOKS AT THE DISCOVERY OF DYES AND HOW THEY MADE THE WORLD A MORE COLORFUL PLACE

B

lombos cave, on the southern coast of South Africa, attracted some of the earliest humans, long before they began to migrate out of Africa. They were curious and found some red rock soft enough to use a harder rock to scratch crosshatch designs into it. Explorers found the rocks they scratched and left behind. They still have that design. They also ground up that red rock and used the powder to draw on the walls.

NATURAL HISTORY

A general view of the Blombos Cave site, South Africa. Wikimedia Commons, by Vincent Mourre / Inrap

Images, such as these handprints from Altamira, Spain, became the basis for early representational art. Shutterstock

December/January 2017 History Magazine

31

NATURAL HISTORY

colorful and it connects us to those early people. Our hands would fit their outlines. What they created has lasted all this time. That red rock is ochre, taken from Greek ochros or yellow, and satisfies the old adage, “the Greeks had a word for it”. How the word for yellow became a red rock is unclear. It shows us that not only did our early human ancestors like color, but also that people always have, from the time primates stood up and their faces started to resemble humans.

Decorating with color evolved with upright posture, reasoning and a larger brain.

All of those earliest dyes were natural products derived from everyday sources such as flowers, plants, animals, seashells, rocks, sand and soil. Even more recently, two thousand years ago, Celts painted their faces. We don’t know what they used or why they did it, but we know the Romans didn’t like them and called them Picti, which translates as “painted people”. Their painted faces and swords frightened the Romans and were among the reasons Hadrian built his wall, separating the Roman Empire’s northern range from those nasty Celts with their painted faces. Picti is the root of the English word “picture” and from the beginning, we have tried to add color to pictures. If there really is human nature, perhaps decorating ourselves and our homes, and our use of tools, separates us best from other animals. They want to eat us or run away. We draw them first and then eat them. I suppose there’s some balance there. We may be a violent

32

The mehndi design is popular with women on the Indian subcontinent. Shutterstock

and arrogant species, but we are talented too and we especially like to draw pictures of our surroundings. Color is everywhere. People in the West have imported Persian rugs for millennia. Craftsmen wove them with vegetable dye colored wool. We decorate our bodies too. Women on the Indian subcontinent dye their hair and apply designs to their hands and feet, known as mehndi, using a dark brown powder from a Henna tree. It looks like a tattoo, but it wears off after a few weeks. I have watched it applied and the ritual was reminiscent of a day at a spa. We decorate food, for example Spanish cooks use saffron, a bright orange dye derived from a type of crocus, to color rice. Tibetan Buddhist monks use that saffron to dye their robes. I have a jar of saffron petals in my spice drawer.

Saffron is commonly used by Buddhist monks to dye their robes. Shutterstock

History Magazine December/January 2017

Early fabrics, food and leather were all colored with these “vegetable” dyes. Some of the food coloring we buy today is still derived naturally. Indigo is also another great example of a natural dye, with a history tied closely to colonial America. It looks like a food crop and can grow as tall as a person, with red flowers that turn into seedpods resembling pea pods. There are two main species, one from Asia and one from South America although it was originally cultivated in India. The British introduced it later to her two Western colonies, America and Jamaica. Indigo production in the American south grew due to the efforts of a very young woman and a very nasty exploitation. The young woman’s name was Eliza Lucas and she lived in South Carolina. The exploitation was slavery and she was a slave owner, pushed into running her family’s plantation when her father was posted to Antigua in 1739 as their Royal Governor. She was just seventeen and in charge of their big plantation that was so close to the sea, it wouldn’t support cotton production. She imported indigo seeds from her father, perfected their cultivation and seedpod extraction, a process so laborintensive that by design, it was meant to be handled as a slave crop. She built an industry that ended up every bit as important as tobacco and cotton to the colonial economy. Pretty good for a seventeen year old, although most of us condemn her use of slaves in the same breath as we applaud her farm management skills, a benefit of hindsight. Their process began by extracting the dye from harvested indigo leaves by soaking them until they fermented. It was a smelly, dirty, tedious process in which the

Indigo is a natural dye made by extracting the dye from indigo leaves and soaking them until they ferment. Shutterstock

slaves churned the leaves with hand-held paddles until the soupy mix turned purple. That purple liquid was drawn off and they repeated the process. The dye settled out of the water like sand settles out of seawater.

British fabric workers invented a process that used it to dye the King’s garments so it became known as “Royal Purple”. A hundred years later, it was also the color, by then synthetic, used for “blue” jeans, invented by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis during the California Gold Rush, which began in 1848.

A year later, those blue-jean wearing miners became known as forty-niners. Britain imported 100% of the indigo crop because she could do what she wanted with her American colony. Ruling nations ran colonies by exploiting them for financial gain because they owned them. In one year, from 1756 to 1757, indigo exports from South Carolina quadrupled from 232,100 pounds to 894,500 pounds. By 1775, South Carolina

exported 1.1 million pounds of the dye. Within 20 years of the end of the Revolutionary War, Britain stopped importing indigo from South Carolina and began importing it from India. Indigo needed a colonial economy to be profitable and India was Britain’s new colony. It died as a cash crop in America, mainly because of those economics, without slavery or colonialism, indigo was unprofitable. Dyes were also mined much like precious metals. Those cave people who used ochre found it as a rock and it is popular as an artists’ medium, even today. Most natural dyes fade, wash or bleach out in sunlight. We say vegetable dyes are not colorfast. Their range of colors is neither broad nor vivid. Before 1858, it was a natural world and colors were muted like a garden viewed at dusk. Then it was the Victorian Era. Mention that era today and people think of pretty homes with gables and turrets, machine-cut moldings and multi-colored paint schemes on the shingles. Homes were built in charming neighborhoods and gas lamps lit both the homes and the streets. Talk about gaslight and we conjure images of quiet dinners in romantic bistros. But gaslight is an early example of an invention that solved a

Sir William Henry Perkin discovered a synthetic purple dye in coal tar, a byproduct of the combustion of coal gas. Shutterstock

problem, but left us with a waste product that created more problems than the invention solved. Companies made the gas for gaslight by heating coal until something called coal gas was released. That gas was trapped and burned for light, but the black sludge remaining after the gas was drawn off was called coal tar, possibly the first industrial waste. Companies scrambled to find uses for it, especially uses that would provide additional income and avoid the complicated problem of disposing of it. Sir William Henry Perkin discovered a synthetic purple dye in that coal tar and changed the way we view the world. He did it while searching for something else. He went to work when he was only fifteen, common in that era, apprenticed to a German chemist, August Wilhelm von Hoffmann who had moved to England by invitation to start the Royal College of Chemistry. Von Hoffmann was selected for that post because he was eminent, having studied under Justus Liebig. High school chemistry students know Liebig because his name is attached to his “Liebig Condenser”, used around the world to liquefy gases. It is a simple contraption with a corkscrew-shaped glass tube inside a larger glass tube. We circulate water through the larger tube to cool the corkscrew, causing the gas inside the corkscrew to condense and drip out the end. A Liebig condenser made very large is called a still, the kind used to make moonshine. It is a very useful contraption. When he joined Hoffmann as a research assistant in 1853, Perkin was a precocious East-Londoner with a penchant for chemistry. Von Hoffmann assigned him to a project aimed at finding a synthetic source of quinine. It would

December/January 2017 History Magazine

33

NATURAL HISTORY

34

be a coup if he could do it with coal tar because quinine would have been the first synthetic drug, not one made from a tree or plant. Britain had always been an empire builder and by the mid1800s, it included the British Raj. Raj means “ruler” as in the word maharajah. It was a breeding ground of malaria. British rule emerged in 1858 when power of the British East India Company transferred to the Crown, headed by Queen Victoria. Gin and tonic was the drink of choice for British residents because tonic water contains quinine and quinine treats malaria, a major cause of death in India’s Punjab region. Quinine was made from natural sources, like most products of the time, extracted from the bark of the Peruvian quina or cinchona tree. That extraction was too expensive so anyone inventing its synthesis could stand to make a lot of money. Perkin’s experiments didn’t go well and quinine ultimately was not synthesized until 1944. Perkin gave us a class of chemicals we still call aniline dyes. They are indeed one of the components of coal tar. Otto Unverdorben, a German chemist was only twenty when he discovered the chemical called analine in 1826. Originally, he distilled indigo plants and obtained a substance he called crystallin. People after Unverdorben isolated similar substances, some of which turned blue when they treated them with caustic substances like lye. Someone named the blue substances aniline, after a plant called anil that also yielded indigo. Von Hoffmann demonstrated that all these discoveries were the same molecule, aniline. It smelled like fish and was in search of a use. One day, von Hoffmann was

away from the lab and Perkin’s youthful curiosity led him away from making quinine. He set up some chemical reactions, but his experiments yielded a worthless red sludge, so he repeated them starting with aniline, ending up with another black sludge that he extracted with alcohol which turned light purple. When he dipped a piece of silk into the purple alcohol, the silk turned purple.

He had found the first aniline dye, and at last, the molecule that smelled like fish had a use. He called it mauve and at age 18, he filed a patent application.

It was 1856 and his father trusted him sufficiently that he set up a business they named Perkin and Sons. Within two years of the patent, they began manufacturing that mauve commercially under the trade name Mauveine. Within five years, he was a wealthy man. European nobility took to it the way Americans in the sixties took to tie-dye. Victoria started the trend when she wore a mauve gown to her daughter’s wedding in 1858. Napoleon’s wife, the Empress Eugenie, wore mauve because she felt it matched her eyes. After Prince Albert’s death, Victoria wore mauve as her permanent color. Victoria’s granddaughter, Alexandra, wife of Czar Nicholas, decorated a room in mauve. Before 1858, mauve was just a French word for the purple mallow plant, from which we derive the word marshmallow (guimauve in French). After 1858, mauve became a popular fabric dye because it was easy to use, bright purple, colorfast and

History Magazine December/January 2017

Pathologists study microscopic cells stained with aniline dyes. Shutterstock

ultimately, its supply was endless. Aniline dyes are permanent, do not fade, wash or bleach out in sunlight. Textile chemists dye fabric, printers print in color, pathologists study microscopic cells and artists have a color palette. The colors are vivid and the range is broad, like receiving a 64-color box of Crayola® crayons after using a starter box. They’ve become a huge business. Each of us wears or uses something every day dyed with aniline dyes. Perkin went on to develop a novel chemical reaction that carries his name, the Perkin Reaction. There’s also a Perkin Medal awarded to talented chemists and there’s a journal named for him, the Perkin Transactions. He moved the world of color from dusk to high noon. Perkin gave birth to an industry, but the dye industry faded in the UK as it concentrated itself in Germany, Switzerland and France. From our Stone Age cave dweller with a mouthful of ochre and a red hand, to the invention of aniline dyes, we have always tried to make our world more colorful. Hm BARRY GOLD holds a BS from

the Univ. of Cincinnati and a Ph.D. (in pharmacology) from Boston University. His hobbies include woodworking, cooking, and writing full time.

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WINDMILLS

An American-style windmill at 1880 Town, near Murdo, South Dakota. Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/ pictures/item/2010630569/

POWER FROM THE AIR

Windmills through the Centuries

DAVID A. NORRIS LOOKS AT THE HISTORY OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND ENDURING INVENTIONS BROUGHT ABOUT BY HUMANKIND

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indmills, popular symbols of the Netherlands as well as the farmlands of the western US and Canada, date back to early medieval Persia. From the Middle East, windmill technology spread east into China, and by the 12th century, west into Europe.

One of England’s earliest windmills (perhaps the first) was built in 1191 by a church official, Dean Herbert of Bury St. Edmunds. The dean having built the mill without permission, his abbot ordered him to tear it down. Dean Herbert may have been a bit ahead of his time, but by one estimate, 40% of the 10,000 mills

standing in England in 1300 were windmills. The first windmills were fixed structures. Because windmills worked best when facing into the wind, finding a means of moving the sails to face the wind would make them much more efficient. So, the post mill came into being. In a post mill, the works were

protected in a house that rotated around a thick wooden post. When the wind shifted, the entire mill was moved by means of a long wooden pole or “tailpiece”. Later, the tower mill became standard. Tower mills had solid walls of stone, brick, or wood, with no open area underneath the works. The sturdy base stabilized the mill against strong winds, and offered storage space as well. The top of the mill, and its sails, moved independently from the tower to catch the winds. Whereas it took horses or oxen to move a

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large post mill, a couple of mill hands could shift the smaller moveable portion of a tower mill. A good windmill site was a place in the open near the coast, or on a hill, where no obstructions blocked the power of the winds. (In 1346, Edward III used a windmill as an observation tower to direct his army at the Battle of Crécy, in France.) The site would also be within reasonable distance of a village or farming community. Many new windmills were built on the sites of older ones lost through fires, storms, or decay; millers knew that the old mill had stood on the best available local site. Wind power was first captured by wooden blades, or arms (also called vanes or “whips”), that were fitted with sails made of linen or canvas. To work efficiently, millers worked during blustery days, rainstorms, and at night. They tried to take advantage of strong winds as much as possible, but wind speeds of perhaps 45 miles per hour were the limit. Stronger winds threatened to blow down a windmill in operation, so the mill had to be stopped. A brake locked the vanes in place, and the miller or an assistant had to climb onto each vane, using cross braces as if they were steps on a ladder. The windmill’s sails were hauled in and tied or “reefed” by hand, something like the way sailors would reef a sail at sea. Often, this was done in the dark of night, with rain pounding on the sails and the miller. In winter, the miller struggled with frozen canvas. And, the ordeal had to be repeated four times, once for each vane. On a small mill, the arms reached nearly to the ground, but on larger mills with higher sails the miller had a balcony from which he climbed onto the vanes.

For centuries, the interior machinery in old tower windmills was made entirely of wood. Library of Congress

After reefing the sails, the miller turned the mill so that the wind blew against the narrow sides of the vanes, minimizing wind resistance. Leonardo da Vinci sketched windmills in his notebooks. Windmills continually evolved with new ideas and technology. After the invention of the fantail

in the mid-1700s, the sails turned into the wind without the miller having to move the tailpiece. A late 18th century innovation replaced cloth sails with hinged wooden or metal slats arranged much like a shutter on a house window. Large millstones ground wheat and corn. Small mills had only a single pair of millstones, but increasingly sophisticated machinery allowed the use of multiple pairs of stones. The lower stone, or bedstone, did not move. The upper stone, called the runner, rotated to grind grain or other substances against the bedstone. For grinding, grain poured from a hopper through a hole in the runner stone. Millstone surfaces were not flat, but channeled with grooves carved into the stone. The grooves or furrows formed cutting edges that crushed and ground grain, and channeled the finished product off the stone into a bin. The millstones were adjusted so that they were only a fraction of

Windmills in the Netherlands pumped water out of polders, tracts of former sea bottom that were walled off and drained to create new lands. Library of Congress

History Magazine December/January 2017

an inch apart. For different kinds of meal or flour, the miller altered the clearance between the stones, sometimes to within a few hundredths of an inch. It was essential that the stones were kept even and not allowed to scrape together, because the resulting friction and heat could set the mill ablaze. The furrows eventually wore down and had to be re-carved again to sharpen them. Especially during the Middle Ages, grit from millstones often was mixed in with flour and meal, so eating bread contributed to considerable tooth damage. Some medieval windmills were owned by feudal lords or the church, but many were built by merchants or other prosperous commoners. Besides grinding grain, windmills powered sawmills and gunpowder works; pounded metal ores; and ground tobacco and snuff, mortar, and dye pigments. Windmills around Cape Cod, Massachusetts and many other coastal regions pumped sea water into salt works, where the water was dried in shallow pans to extract the sea salt. Some North Carolina windmills pumped water to flood rice fields. In late 19th century New York City, windmills pumped water to cisterns in multi-story factories and apartment buildings. Banners or ribbons of bright cloth were tied to windmill sails for celebrations. When stopped and locked into place, the position of a windmill’s arms could convey messages such as a celebration or a death in the miller’s family or village. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Dutch used windmills to drain water from low-lying regions. They also created polders, new areas of land created by building an earthen wall or dike in shallow waters and then pumping the enclosure dry. Until the 19th

A tower windmill figures prominently in this 1833 view of Boston. Windmills were once a common sight along much of the Atlantic coast of the US. Library of Congress

century, windmills were the primary way of keeping polders and lowlands dry. Mechanical pumps began taking over the work in the 19th century, but many windmills remained in operation in the Netherlands. During World War II, fuel shortages made windmills essential for drainage. Nearly one thousand windmills remain in the Netherlands today, many as historic attractions.

WINDMILLS AROUND THE WORLD European colonists built windmills along the Atlantic coast of North America in the 1600s, as well as in the Caribbean Islands

A fanciful Victorian image of an early windmill in Detroit. French, English, and Dutch colonists built windmills in many North American settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries.

and in Spain’s mainland possessions. Early Dutch settlers in South Africa also built Europeanstyle windmills. Windmills in the Danish Virgin Islands and elsewhere crushed sugar cane on plantations at harvest time. Although building the large stone towers was expensive, planters found windmills were much more productive than horse-powered sugar mills. A 1775 accounting found 44 windmills in use in Jamaica. Many West Indian windmills were damaged or destroyed in hurricanes. In Australia, settlers built some European-style windmills in the early 1800s. The oldest building in Queensland is an 1824 structure known as “the Old Windmill”. Built for grinding grain at a penal colony, the mill also could be powered by a treadmill that was worked by the convicts. In later decades, the building has also been a museum as well as a site for pioneering Australian radio and television broadcasting. On the West Coast of the US, the first windmill was built by Russian settlers at Fort Ross, which was a Russian colony from 1812-1841.

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One windmill was running at Flowerdew Hundred near Jamestown, Virginia in 1621. In the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, a windmill was reportedly under construction on Manhattan Island in 1628. Eighteenth century French colonists built windmills at frontier settlements such as Detroit, St. Louis, and at Kaskasia in Illinois. Even today, place names such as Windmill Point or Windmill Hill provide reminders of long-lost windmills in many US states. Eventually, windmills became common sights along the coasts of New England, Long Island, and the Mid-Atlantic and Southern states, where broad, flat rivers near the ocean offered few good places to build dams to power water mills. Some 18th century views of Boston, New York, and other coastal cities show one or more tower windmills. Even today, the seal of the City of New York depicts a stylized windmill. Colonial mills were licensed by county courts or other local governments. Local authorities decided where to allow windmills, and also fined millers for overcharging their customers or stealing grain. There were two types of mills, in a business sense. Custom mills charged customers to grind meal. A 1705 law in colonial Virginia allowed millers to charge onesixth of the corn they ground, or one-eighth of the wheat. Merchant windmills bought corn or grain, to sell the resulting products. As tall structures in open areas, windmills were vulnerable to storms and lightning. Early references to colonial-era windmills in the newspapers record storm damage. The Boston Gazette, for example, reported in 1727 that “on Wednesday last a sudden Clap of Thunder struck the North

Wind-Mill in this Place, and very much shatter’d it, and struck the Miller and his Son down.” Other newspaper accounts mention accidents caused when workers or visitors were pulled into the machinery or occasionally struck down by the turning vanes. There is even a Dutch figure of speech, “een klap van de Molen” (“he had a knock on his head from the windmill”), which means someone is acting irrationally. When a miller was killed in a mill accident, the millstones were regarded as unlucky and were replaced. Often one of the millstones became the gravestone of the dead miller.

WINDMILLS GET THEIR SECOND WIND Much of the interior of the eastern United States was bettersuited for harnessing water power, because winds were not steady enough for efficient use. But, as agriculture expanded into the

Midwest and the Great Plains, a new kind of windmill became indispensible for rural life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The new style of “American windmill” was a plain tower with a rotating set of fan-shaped blades. The earliest such mill was patented by Daniel Halliday in 1854. Vast regions of the US, Canada, Africa, and Australia lacked surface water, but the windmill opened these lands to farming and grazing. Halliday’s mill was the first of many that were used to pump water from deep ground sources, enabling farmers and ranchers to thrive on lands without surface water. American windmills were widely exported, but manufacturers in Australia and elsewhere set up factories to make their own versions. The American windmill was a very simple machine. It needed no housing, only a tower of wood or steel. At first, iron or steel towers were painted, but galvanized

“American windmills” on display at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis 1904. US manufacturers produced around six million such windmills following the Civil War, and they were sold throughout North America as well as Australia, Africa, and elsewhere in the world. Library of Congress

History Magazine December/January 2017

The “American windmill” was invaluable for farmers and stock raisers who lived on lands without surface water. This windmill was photographed in Custer County, Nebraska in 1889. Library of Congress

metal towers eventually became the norm. A full-time miller was not needed, and indeed, farmers and ranchers could let their windmills run for long periods without giving them much thought. The new windmills automatically turned themselves into the wind. Blades adjusted themselves to catch light breezes, or changed their angles to slow down in a strong wind. The invention of the “self-oiling windmill”, which kept the gears in an oil-filled chamber, further reduced necessary maintenance. With a windmill, a farmer needed only to drill a narrow well shaft to reach underground water. Water flowed constantly, and was stored in a tank or pond until needed. Windmills also pumped water for railroads, which needed water tanks every few miles along the tracks for their steam locomotives. The windmill’s benefits didn’t end with pumping water. It could also power small farm machines that could shell corn or grind meal. In the 1920s and 1930s, before the rural electrification

program of the Great Depression, windmills also charged batteries for electric radios or lights. In the decades after the Civil War, around one thousand American manufacturers built a total of more than six million windmills, shipping them across the US, Canada, and much of the world. Mail order giants such as Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Montgomery Ward sold windmills, as did traveling salesmen. In 1897, Sears offered windmills for as little as $19, although steel towers were sold separately at an additional 40 to 60 cents per foot. Some people built their own windmills, including many that were made with wooden fan blades nailed to wagon wheels. Inventor Daniel Halladay’s design, with wooden (later metal) blades radiating from a central hub, became a pattern for many North American windmills. Halladay’s main rival was Leonard H. Wheeler, inventor of the Eclipse windmill, which used a solid wheel rather than one made of larger blades.

The US windmill industry peaked in 1928. Nearly 100,000 units were sold; about one fourth of them were exported. About half of those produced domestically were sold in Texas. Adding to sales figures in the Western states was the pragmatic practice of keeping spare windmills on hand, in case of the loss of an operational machine due to storms or other causes. The Great Depression hit the windmill manufacturers a double blow. First, sales dropped along with the agricultural economy. Then, the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 brought electrical power within reach of most American farmers. Electric pumps then began replacing the windmill. Windmills have made a hightech comeback in recent decades, in the form of wind turbines that generate renewable electricity. An inventor named Charles Brush built a wind turbine in 1886, but wind-generated electricity became widespread only in recent decades. Worries over nuclear power and oil supplies have spurred interest in continuing the centuries-old tradition of drawing power from the wind. Hm

FURTHER READING For further reading, see: T. Lindsay Baker, “A Field Guide to American Windmills” (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985).

DAVID A. NORRIS is a regular

contributor to History Magazine,

Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy Today. His most recent special issue for Moorshead Magazines Ltd., Tracing Your

Revolutionary War Ancestors, is currently available at our online store.

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IZZY EINSTEIN: PROHIBITION AGENT NO. 1

MELODY AMSEL-ARIELI RECOUNTS THE WORKING LIFE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AGENT EMPLOYED BY THE US PROHIBITION UNIT

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n 16 January 1920, the eve of American Prohibition, scores of “wets”, people supporting legal liquor sales, marked the passing of John Barleycorn, the personification of alcoholic drink, by raising glasses in fond adieu. Clearly “a good many people had made up their minds to get thoroughly

soused, stewed, and pickled, come what may,” reported the Sun & New York Herald the next day, Indeed, “... [New York] had never seen a drunker night.” Nor a sadder one. Some wets, attending farewell, bring-your-own-bottle parties, assumed a false air of merriment, toasting all in sight. Others nursed their beers in silence, heeding the “keening of the wind outside”. Scores of mourners attended black-themed funeral balls featuring spirited bartenders and waiters offering goblets and flutes of gin, wine, or champagne. Others, hip flasks tucked in waistbands, attended mock wakes or funerals complete with sermons, caskets, and even the occasional masked mourner posing as a devil. Then, at the stroke of twelve, all public boozing drew to an end. Or so it seemed. In reality, because the government could not patrol all its rivers, lakes, and borders, bootlegging, the illegal production and distribution of intoxicating beverages, remained rampant for years to come. Though private consumption (along with religious and medicinal use) was permitted, many thousands of “speakeasies”, bars and joints dealing in illicit liquor, continued to flourish. From New York City to California, and in countless spots in between, wets, craving drink more than they feared The Law, indulged in bootlegged “hooch”. To counter their efforts, more than 1,500 federal police officers, agents of the US Prohibition Unit, were charged with keeping the country on the “water wagon”. Isadore Einstein, known to all as

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PROHIBITION

The Silk Exchange Restaurant, on the ground floor of a Fourth Avenue skyscraper, kept its supply on the roof, from Prohibition Agent No. 1. Courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

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Izzy, was the most unlikely – and the most successful – of all. Unlike sharp undercover agents detectible a mile away, this rotund, five-foot-five, middle-aged immigrant from Zassow, Austria, who was among the first to apply, had a distinct advantage – he did not look the part. Though he had no background in law enforcement, growing up on New York’s Lower East Side had endowed him with enviable personal skills – an understanding of human ways and habits and an amiable manner that immediately put people

Broad-faced and friendly, Izzy immediately put people at ease. Private photo collection. Courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

Some “real German Kümmel,” ‘the kind sold as “just off the boat.” From Prohibition Agent No. 1, courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

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at ease. Moreover, Izzy was gifted in languages. Besides speaking Yiddish, his mother tongue, he could patter in German, English, Hungarian, and Polish, laced with a smattering of Russian. He was hired. Almost immediately, Izzy revealed another side of his nature. Like his comedian cousin Parkyakarkus (Harry Einstein), he had an innate flair for theatrics. Combining a rich imagination, Old World charm, and sheer chutzpah, he switched characters as easily as a chameleon changes colors. In short, he was willing to do anything – to don any disguise or identity that gained him entry to a “speak” – and get an incriminating swig of hooch. Yet this lawman never carried a gun, nor accepted a bribe. Often, Izzy entered “juice joints” disguised as true-to-life street cleaners, salesmen, librarians, lawyers, pushcart peddlers, or grocers, all eager to quench their illicit thirst. Other times, he impersonated street car conductors, dockworkers, undertakers, or grave diggers, all dying for a drink. Izzy also hoodwinked bartenders by blending in, being one of the boys. He busted a joint near a hospital, for example, dressed as an orderly, and another at a Coney Island beach, shivering wet in a bathing suit. One Saturday in November, Izzy got a group of “good men and true” together, rigging them up in football togs smeared with fresh mud. They burst into the closest joint, whooping that, now with the season over, they could break training. “Would any saloonkeeper refuse drinks to a bunch of football players in that state of mind?” Izzy asked. Nope. Soon he discovered that his season was over too. Izzy also had great success gadding about town as a gasfitter, installing or repairing fixtures,

“...After Hours of Patient Labor and Finally Calling in the Assistance of an Actor, [Izzy] Succeeded in Accomplishing a ‘Make-up’ as a Chinaman Which Was Good Enough to Pass the Sharpeyed Lookout Spies in New York’s Chinatown,” The Washington Times, June 22, 1922, out of newspaper copyright

pipes, and appliances. After donning greasy overalls, he recalled, “Any place where I was offered real work to do I immediately confessed the need for a different kind of wrench than I had with me, and before starting off to fetch it, a little drink seemed appropriate to sustain me on the way.” This ploy landed forty gullible “speak-keepers”. Somehow, with concentrated effort and considerable make-up, this broad-faced, cigarchomper even portrayed a credible Chinaman in New York’s China Town and a black man in Harlem. To enter higher class venues, Izzy metamorphosed into whatever worked, including a French maître d’, a banker, a beauty contest judge, even a portly Polish count. He also “sang his way” into “speaks” as a Hungarian violinist and an opera singer.

All set for visiting an Albany coal yard that sold liquid fuel as a side line. From Prohibition Agent No. 1, courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

To get into a particular club that catered to members of the Musician’s Union, you had to have a Union card. Izzy, entering on a borrowed one, offered to buy drinks for anyone who could find him some job leads. When asked which instrument he played, he said, “With a Long-Haired wig, Horned Rim Glasses and a Second-Hand Trombone, Izzy Played the Part of Musician and Got Into the Secrets of the Yorkville Casino’s Liquor Stores.” The Pittsburgh Press Sun, June 18,1922, out of newspaper copyright

“Trombone.” “Play something,” they said “and let’s hear how good you are.” Though he said he’d left his trombone at home, they managed to scrounge one up. Happily, this time was no ruse. Izzy, who had come from a musical home, launched into a resounding rendition of “How Dry I Am”. His appreciative audience promised that when he returned that evening, he’d have a job. Instead, he returned with an arrest warrant. Izzy did not only sleuth alone. He often worked joints, “speaks”, and stills disguised as pawn shops, garages, and country clubs, with his trusted partner, Moe Smith. Disguised as bulky biddies in babushkas, elderly couples, street cleaners, stablemen, and more, they always got their drink. And they always got their man.

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Sometimes only a simple prop did the trick. “At a bier-stube in the Bronx,” Izzy confided, “I had a crutch under my arm. ... In Brooklyn, I borrowed a pail of dill pickles from a peddler friend of mine, and went the rounds. At some restaurants on Long Island I had a fishing rod. Whatever the kind of place, my carrying something seemed to O.K. me as not being ‘one of those trouble-makers’ that came empty-handed.” As Izzy’s colorful exploits became known, his fame spread far and wide. In fact, as a sign of goodwill, New York’s Prohibition Unit “lent” him out to other locations. True to form, Izzy posed as a construction worker in Providence, a Spanish-speaking ranchman in El Paso, and a movie extra in Hollywood. Izzy, far from modest, described his operations as the “Einstein Theory of Rum Snooping”, referring to Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. His success, which averaged 100 busts a week, was phenomenal – far more than any other prohibition agent. Amazingly, he once raided 48 “speaks” on a single night – downing an impossible 48 shots of liquor. Well, not quite. Since he could not possibly swig shot after shot while making his rounds, this ambitious hooch hound had devised a fool proof method of appearing to drink, yet preserving the evidence he needed to secure guilty verdicts. “On the left side of my vest, I rigged up an evidence-collector consisting of a small funnel concealed in my pencil pocket,” he explained, “connected by a tube to a little bottle hidden in [my coat] lining....” The rest was simple. Each time the sleuth raised a thimbleful of hooch toward his lips, he adopted a downward angle, tossing it convincingly down the artificial hatch. Deed done, his first words, uttered

“Ranchman” Izzy Einstein in El Paso, Texas. From Prohibition Agent No. 1. Courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

sympathetically, were always, “Dere’s sad news here. You’re under arrest.” Bartenders, it is said, fainted on the spot. In the space of five years, Izzy announced “Dere’s sad news here” 4,932 times, making 4,932 arrests. Ninety-five percent resulted in convictions, leading to seizure of over 5,000,000 bottles of liquor. For all his success, the job wasn’t as easy as it seemed. “It takes a little finesse,” Izzy explained. “The main thing is that you have to be natural. The hardest thing an agent has to do is really act as if he wanted and needed a drink….” A man could “roll over and die on the saloon

The art of cutting, bottling and labeling—as practiced in South Brooklyn, near the Raymond Street Jail. From Prohibition Agent No. 1, courtesy Isabel Rosenstein, granddaughter of Izzy Einstein

History Magazine December/January 2017

floor and never get a drop” if a bartender was suspicious, he added. When rumors flew that Izzy was in town, waiters and “speakkeepers” also kept their eyes peeled. Many establishments posted his photograph in warning, yet when he came, the agent rarely resembled his natural appearance. Izzy’s name, surprisingly, served him well. At one joint, for example, the bartender insisted that Izzy was Izzy Epstein. When Izzy asked if he really meant Izzy Einstein, the man stood his ground. So Izzy bet him a drink. As the bartender poured, he nabbed him. Another time, to enter an extra-careful “speak”, patrons were required to give their names. When asked who he was, Izzy said, “Izzy Einstein”. Thinking it was a super joke, they let him in. But the joke was on them.

Izzy basked in the limelight. In addition to donning imaginative disguises that earned popular acclaim, the irrepressible sleuth often invited scores of eager reporters to tag along as he made strings of arrests. Newspapers all over the country carried reports of Izzy’s irrepressible antics. In time, he could not enter a tobacco shop or a haberdashery without being recognized. Izzy’s unprecedented popularity proved to be his undoing. In 1925, despite his extraordinary success, the New York Prohibition Unit accused Izzy of turning hootch hunting into low-brow comedy. After five years on the force, he was relieved of his duties “for the good of the service”. Despite offers for parts in the movies, on radio, and in vaudeville, Izzy settled down as a life insurance salesman. In 1932, he dedicated his autobiography,

Prohibition Agent No. 1, to the thousands of people he arrested, “Hoping they bear me no grudge for having done my duty.” Evidently not. According to Izzy’s obituary, which appeared in Pennsylvania’s Reading Eagle in 1938, many became his clients. Hm End Note: As a child, the author, Izzy’s great niece, was regaled with tales of his escapades. MELODY AMSEL-ARIELI is an American-Israeli freelance writer whose articles have appeared in genealogical and historical magazines across the UK, US, and Canada. She is the author of

Between Galicia and Hungary: The Jews of Stropkov (Avotaynu 2002) and Jewish Lives: 1750-1950 (Pen & Sword, 2013). Visit her website at http://amselbird.com.

Here’s what’s coming... The Real D’Artagnan ● Machiavelli: ‘The Prince’ Two Royal Escapes ● Lynching Story Ghost Islands ● The Malvern Hills Jack Dempsey: The “Manassa Mauler’” McNaughton Rules ● Servant Girl Murders Final Contents Subject to Change

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SPORT

Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Pierre de Coubertin THE FATHER OF THE MODERN OLYMPICS DAVID FUNK LOOKS AT THE LIFE OF THE MAN WHO’S GOAL WAS TO PROMOTE FITNESS AND FRIENDSHIP THROUGH SPORT 48

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ierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin wrote a substantial amount in his life and received a number of accolades and achievements along the way. Much of his contributions to his written work concerned the importance of education and sports. He was once a Nobel Peace Prize candidate a year before his death in 1937, and wrote Olympic Memoirs four years prior to that. During a time when sports began to play a more prominent role throughout the world in the late 1800s, it was a vision of his to bring athletics and education, along with the world, together at once. It was his idea to also continue a legacy that began in Ancient Greece. The Ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to 776 BC in Olympia and happened in the same place every four years. They were a dedication to the Greek god Zeus. The Games continued on for more than a thousand years, but the decline began after the Roman Empire’s conquest of Greece. In 393 AD, Emperor Theodosius I banned the Olympic Games. The Olympics wouldn’t return again for nearly fifteen hundred years. In 1835, well-known poet Panagiotis Soutsos wrote a memo to King Otto of Greece in an attempt to bring back the Olympics. Despite nothing being done, Soutsos continued to push the idea. Twenty-four years later, Evangelis Zappas capitalized on the idea of Olympics as they returned in a city square in Athens. Athletes from Greece as well as the Ottoman Empire took part in those Olympic Games. Zappas died in 1865, but had amassed enough of a fortune to

be used for future Olympic events and the restoration of Panatheniac Stadium. His version of the Olympics would be held at the stadium in 1870 and 1875. The funds he left were later used to build the Zappeion Building for the Olympic Games in 1896 in honor of him and used for the fencing events. Prior to Zappas’ version of the Olympics, the Wenlock Olympian Games by founder William Penny Brookes took place in 1850 in England. Brookes was initially the one that proposed International Olympics to be held in the place it began – Greece. Brookes’ idea and plea to Greece for the International Games went unheard. However, de Coubertin – influenced by Brookes after a visit to Wenlock in 1890 – adopted many of those ideas in his attempt to carry on the legacy of those before him. Born in Paris on New Year’s Day in 1863, de Coubertin was the youngest of four children to Charles de Frédy de Coubertin and Marie-Marcelle Gigault de Crisenoy. His father was a painter, and he spent the majority of his childhood living at the family

chateau that his mother inherited in Mirville in Normandy. He traveled extensively around Europe in his early life. In his early childhood, his country suffered a great defeat in the Franco-Prussian War that dramatically changed the landscape of European history. He came to the conclusion that his countrymen were not physically fit to overcome the loss of war. This also became a factor in his desire to increase the importance of physical education. After attending Jesuit College of St. Ignatius in Paris, his passion for education would eventually take over. Before this, he would lose interest in studying law. Even though he toured all over Europe and into America – while the importance of physical education in his country deteriorated – it did lead to a grand plan that would change the world. Like Soutsos, Kappas, and Wenlock before him, de Coubertin worked tirelessly to bring on the re-establishment of the Olympic Games – which would help increase the awareness of physical education. In 1892, de Coubertin’s idea for

Spiridon “Spyros” Louis was the winner of the 1896 Olympic marathon event. Public domain

the modern Olympics was presented at the French Union of Athletic Sports Society. The Olympic Committee would be founded two years later when the International Athletics Congress was organized in Paris. Representatives of 12 countries and a total of 79 delegates were there to discuss reviving the Olympic Games. The meeting resulted in the International Olympic Committee being born, and Greece representative Demetrius Vikelas became their first President. Like in Ancient times, it was decided that the Olympic Games would be held every four years. Furthermore, de Coubertin originally planned to have the Olympics taken to different parts of the world. Since the idea was based on the ancient games in Greece, it was especially felicitous to hold the first modern Olympics there. But economic and political issues were so troublesome in Greece at the time that it was thought the Olympic Games couldn’t be held there. Three years prior to the first modern Olympic Games, in December of 1893, then-Greece Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis had publicly declared the nation was bankrupt. Greece improved the nation’s infrastructure and military throughout the 1800s. But it borrowed heavily to do so – leading to the second bankruptcy in six decades for Greece. Trikoupis raised taxes in every way imaginable to balance the country’s budget. Combined with the dramatic drop in currants and worldwide depression, the Prime Minister had little choice in making that public decision. Unsurprisingly, Trikoupis was not re-elected in 1895 as Theodoros Diligianis became the country’s new Prime Minister. During a transition to a new

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Prime Minister and still lingering economic woes, momentum to make the first modern Olympics a success continued on by de Coubertin and Vikelas. The first ever modern Olympics were aided by the sale of medals and souvenir stamps along with a financial donation by Georgios Averoff that proved vital to Greece. It was Averoff, a wealthy Greek businessman, who donated nearly a million drachmas to restore Panathenaic Stadium under his direction. The stadium was first built around 330 BC and was used during the 1870 and 1875 Greek Olympics. The stadium was rebuilt entirely out of marble, and, to this day, is the only one in the world made out of such. The ten-day event of the first ever modern Olympic Games began on 6 April 1896 in Athens. Only 241 men competed in Athens for those first Olympic Games. Spyros Samaras composed the music and Kostis Palamas wrote the lyrics for the first Olympic Anthem. Track and field, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling were the nine sports featured in Athens. A total of 43 events were held. The swimming events, in particular, were unique as they took place at the Bay of Zea. For the first time in over fifteen hundred years, an Olympic champion was crowned when American James Connolly won the triple jump event on 6 April. Americans dominated the track and field events, winning nine of the 12 that were scheduled. The marathon event debuted at the Olympics at Panathenaic Stadium on 10 April 1896. To the delight of the home crowd of an estimated 100,000 spectators, it was won by Greek Spyridon Louis with a time of 2:58:50. The next closest competitor to him was fellow

Olympic first place medal from the Athens Games of 1896 (obverse), from the collection of the Olympic Museum (IOC). Yoho2001, Wikimedia Commons

countryman Kharilaos Vasilakos, who finished more than seven minutes behind him. For Louis, he never competed in running again, but was a hero for life to his countrymen for being the first marathon winner. King George I, who officially opened the Olympic Games, awarded each winner a wild olive wreath, diplomas, and a silver medal. Laurel wreaths, diplomas, and copper medals were given to second place winners. Forty-four men received awards from King George I. In a country in turmoil, the Olympics that de Coubertin became the father of instilled country pride as well as worldwide peace. After the success of the first modern Olympic Games, de Coubertin took over as President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He would hold this position for the first quarter of the 20th century when he received Honorary President for life in 1925. Four years later in 1900, the second Olympic Games were held in Paris with significant differences from the one in Athens. Women

History Magazine December/January 2017

competed at these Games for the first time, as 22 of them took part in tennis and golf. Almost 1,000 athletes competed at the Olympics in Paris, with 24 nations participating. It took five months for the Olympics to be completed. When the first modern Olympic Games were completed, de Coubertin stated that his committee would debate having them held in New York, Berlin, or Stockholm in 1904. The 1904 Olympics were scheduled to be held in Chicago, but was switched to St. Louis in 1902. Like the Games in Paris, these Olympics were held as a sideshow attraction for the World Fair. After these Games, de Coubertin vowed to not ever host the Olympics with the World Fair again. His decision not to hold the Games with a World Fair in 1908 provided the vision of the Olympics he was seeking – garnering worldwide notoriety with athletes everywhere wanting to be involved. The Olympics continued to evolve at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden when the loudspeaker was used for the first time as was electronic time-keeping.

World War I caused yet another roadblock in the continuing development of the Olympics when the Games were cancelled in 1916 as a result. Originally, Berlin was scheduled to host the 1916 Olympics, and would have to wait another 20 years before they did so. The Olympics returned in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium, when it first used the Olympic flag, and the first competitor took the oath. Four years later, the Winter Olympics became a separate entity from the summer event. Until the 1990s, both the Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. At the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the Olympic flame had been lit for the first time. It stayed lit until the conclusion of the Games. Pierre de Coubertin’s once great fortune that he amassed dwindled away by the time he had reached

Pierre de Coubertin, circa 1925. He was the second President of the International Olympic Committee from 1896-1925, and was the Honorary President of the IOC from 1922-1937. Public domain

near the end of his life. His finances were lost due to war and depression as well as the money used on the many projects he had taken on in his life. De Coubertin died of a heart attack on 2 September 1937 at the age of 74. A year earlier, the Summer Olympics were held in Berlin when Nazism had come to power. The 1936 Summer Olympics were the first to be televised and featured the first ever torch relay – showing just how far his vision had come. German athlete Luz Long, who gave generous advice to American Jesse Owens in the long jump event, was the first recipient of the Pierre de Coubertin Medal. The award is given by the IOC to the athlete who most exemplifies the spirit of sportsmanship at the Olympic Games in honor of its founder. The IOC has long considered this its highest and most proud honor that can be bestowed on an athlete. World War II put a halt to the Games once again for the next eleven years after his death, when they resumed in 1948 in London. The Olympic Games have gone on as scheduled without cancellation since 1948. Controversies, allegations, doping, and acts of terrorism have plagued the Olympic Games throughout its history. But today, the Olympics have grown, with over 200 nations around the world participating, and over 10,000 athletes taking part. It also now includes the Paralympics, Youth Olympics, and Special Olympics, too. In 2016, another significant first happened as Rio de Janeiro became the first South American city to host the Olympics Games. It was also the first to be held in a Portuguese-speaking country. Pierre de Coubertin created the idea of the Olympic Games by aggressively wanting to increase physical education in his country

and unite the world. He adopted the Games from Soutsos, Kappas, and Brookes before him. None of those that influenced de Coubertin got to see how amazing his vision of uniting the world became. Soutsos and Kappas were long gone by the time 6 April 1896 came around. Sadly, Brookes died months before the 1896 Olympics. De Coubertin overcame a difficult transition in his own country and a bankrupt nation to bring back an ancient tradition. He had a lot of help along the way, and the continued burden in keeping that tradition alive once he became President of the IOC. Roadblocks and obstacles continued to get in his way after the Games in Athens, but he went on undeterred. Ever the educator, de Coubertin still learned valuable lessons well into his life. The most valuable lesson he learned and taught was that the most important aspect of the Olympic Games was not to win, but to be a part of it. With this, he instilled country pride while promoting world peace and cooperation with all nations. The lessons he learned will never overcome the amazing achievement of him being the father of the Olympic Games. His heart was placed in a marble stele in Olympia as a final wish to commemorate his most finest and well-known accomplishment. Hm DAVID FUNK is a freelance

writer and blogger that has written extensively about sports history on his own website. He enjoys fitness training and attending sporting events of all kinds – with baseball, independent wrestling and college football as his favorites.

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THE ELECTRIFYING FALL OF RAINBOW CITY SPECTACLE AND ASSASSINATION AT THE 1901 WORLD’S FAIR by Margaret Creighton

The Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, meant to herald the twentieth century, went tragically, spectacularly awry. In 1901, Buffalo was the eighth-largest city in the United States, and its leaders had big dreams. They would host a world’s fair, showcasing the Americas, and bring millions of people to western New York. With nearby Niagara Falls as a drawing card and with stunning colors and electric lights, they hoped the fair would be more popular and more brilliant, literally, than Chicago’s White City of 1893. The Exposition opened with fanfare; its wonders, both strange and magnificent, dazzled the public. Then tragedy struck. In the early autumn of 1901, an assassin stalked the fairgrounds, waiting for President William McKinley. That was shocking enough, but there were more surprises in store. A female daredevil captivated crowds by trying to ride a

barrel over Niagara Falls. Apache leader Geronimo startled visitors with a controversial performance. And a showman called the Animal King, the self-proclaimed star of the Midway, announced that one of his acts, the smallest woman in the world and the fair’s “mascot”, had been kidnapped. Then he staged the attempted electrocution of an elephant. In this extraordinary account, Margaret S. Creighton lifts the curtain on the assassination of McKinley as well as on the fair’s lesser-known battles, involving both notorious and forgotten figures. In a story that is by turns suspenseful, heartrending, and triumphant, she reveals the myriad power struggles that not only marked the Exposition, but shaped the new century. Published by W. W. Norton & Company; 352 pages ISBN: 978-0-393-24750-3; Price: $28.95

LUFTWAFFE IN COLOUR THE VICTORY YEARS 1939-1942

by Christophe Cony & Jean-Louis Roba

This remarkable work pulls the lid off one of the legendary air forces in history at the very peak of its power – unveiling the men and machines as they truly existed day-to-day, underneath the propaganda of their own regime and the scare stories of their enemies. In Hitler’s Germany, color photography was primarily co-opted for state purposes, such as the military publication Signal, or the Luftwaffe’s own magazine, Der Adler (Eagle). But a number of men had cameras of their own, and in this painstakingly acquired collection, originally published in France, we can witness true life on Germany’s airfields during the period of the Luftwaffe’s ascendancy. Thus not only do we see famous planes such as the Me-109, Ju-87 or He-111, but the wide variety of more obscure types with which the Germans began the war. The array of Arados, Dorniers, Heinkels – not to mention elegant 4-engine Condors – that were initially employed in the war are here in plain sight and full color, providing not only an insight into WWII history, but a model maker’s dream. Just as fascinating are the shots of the airmen themselves, along with their ground crews – full of confidence and cheer as they bested every other air force in Europe during these years, with the single exception of the RAF’s Fighter Command in late-summer 1940. But that was no big stumbling block to the Luftwaffe, which had bigger fish to fry in Russia and North Africa the following year. Published by Casemate; 128 pages; photos throughout ISBN: 978-1-612004082; Price: $24.95

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS

UNTOLD STORIES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR by Anthony Richards

World War I was arguably the defining event of the twentieth century. Claiming the lives of over sixteen million people across the globe, it had an enormous impact on every country, city, and person who experienced it. No nation in Europe was left untouched – even neutral states felt its devastating impact. Yet as In Their Own Words reveals, it was truly the ordinary people who were most affected by the war, such as citizens like Flora Sandes, the only British woman to serve in the military; Captain V.D. Siddons, who served with the RFC in Arabia supporting T.E. Lawrence; and Sidney Lewis, who, at twelve, was the youngest boy soldier in the army. In Their Own Words offers a gripping, poignant collection of memories that tell the story of World War I from the perspective of those who were there, using letters, diaries, and memoirs from the Imperial War Museum’s unparalleled archives. Published by Imperial War Museums 176 pages; ISBN: 978-1-904897-53-8 Price: $22.50

THE PEOPLE AND THE BOOKS 18 CLASSICS OF JEWISH LITERATURE by Adam Kirsch

Jews have long embraced their identity as “the people of the book”. But outside of the Bible, much of the Jewish literary tradition remains little known to non-specialist readers. The People and the Books shows how central questions and themes of our history and culture are reflected in the Jewish literary canon: the nature of God, the right way to understand the Bible, the relationship of the Jews to their Promised Land, and the challenges of living as a minority in Diaspora. Adam Kirsch explores eighteen classic texts, including the Biblical books of Deuteronomy and Esther, the philosophy of Maimonides, and the autobiography of the medieval businesswoman Glückel of Hameln. The People and the Books brings the treasures of Jewish literature to life and offers new ways to think about their enduring power and influence. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; 432 pages ISBN: 978-0-393-24176-1; Price: $28.95

LET TERS FROM BEAULY

PAT HENNESSY AND THE CANADIAN FORESTRY CORPS IN SCOTLAND, 1940-1945 by Melynda Jarratt

During the Second World War, hundreds of New Brunswick woodsmen joined the Canadian Forestry Corps to log the Scottish Highlands as part of the Canadian war effort. Patrick “Pat” Hennessy of Bathurst was one of them. For five years, Pat served as camp cook with 15 Company of the Canadian Forestry Corps near the ancient town of Beauly, Scotland. While in Scotland, Pat regularly corresponded with his family in New Brunswick. Drawing from this unique collection of more than three hundred letters, as well as hundreds of archival documents and photographs, Melynda Jarratt provides a rare glimpse of what life was like for Canadian servicemen overseas and for their relatives at home. Published by Goose Lane Editions; 192 pages ISBN: 978-086492893-1; Price: $18.95

THE CHOSEN ONES by Steve Sem-Sandberg, Translated from the Swedish by Anna Paterson

The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a well-intentioned reform school for wayward boys and girls. The reality, however, was very different: in the wake of Germany’s annexation of Austria on the eve of World War Two, its doctors, nurses, and teachers created a monstrous parody of the institution’s benign-sounding brief. The Nazi regime’s euthanasia program would come to determine the fate of many of the clinic’s inhabitants. Through the eyes of a child inmate, Adrian Ziegler, and a nurse, Anna Katschenka, Steve Sem-Sandberg, the author of the award-winning The Emperor of Lies, explores the very meaning of survival. Passionately serious, meticulously researched, and deeply profound, this extraordinary and dramatic novel bears witness to oppression and injustice, and offers invaluable and necessary insight on an intolerable chapter in Austria’s past. Published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux; 576 pages ISBN: 978-0-374-12280-5; Price: $28.00

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History Magazine December/January 2017

“History is the memory of things said and done.”

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